


all our seams and scars

by ilarual (Ilarual)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Depictions of Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship/Love, Interrupted Kiss, Linked Footnotes, M rating is probably excessive, M/M, Missing Scene(s), Show timeline but with heavy influences from both book and radio canon, The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Unresolved Romantic Tension, canon-typical alcohol use, general tenderness, we're just being careful because the body swap is basically angel sex so there are themes n stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilarual/pseuds/ilarual
Summary: The apocalypse has been averted. The Earth has been granted a reprieve, but Heaven and Hell are looking for someone to blame, and Aziraphale and Crowley aren't out of the woods yet. A story about love, devotion, and quitting your shitty job.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 84
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	all our seams and scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [randomkiwibirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomkiwibirds/gifts).



> Well, here it is folks! My contribution to the 2019-2020 Good Omens Big Bang. It's probably my last bang I'll do for the foreseeable future, because I'm back in school to (finally) finish my degree, and between that and working full time I've discovered that trying to crank out fic on a deadline is a, uh, _bad idea_. But I managed to pull this off in time, and I hope you enjoy it! While this fic is absolutely set in the TV timeline, some elements of characterization are draw inspiration from other variations of canon (this take on Crowley in particular was heavily inspired by Peter Serafinowicz's Crowley from the BBC radio adaptation). 
> 
> First I would like to thank my artist partner, @randomkiwibirds. Becca was a joy to work with, and you may find her beautiful edit linked [here](https://randomkiwibirds.tumblr.com/post/190522044601/crowley-pursed-his-lips-trying-to-find-a-way-to) or [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22456012).
> 
> Secondly, I would like to thank my beta @messofthejess. Jess, you're a champ for getting this tidied up! That said, I've done some pretty significant editing since she last looked it over, so if you spot any mistakes, don't blame her because they're all on me.
> 
> Lastly, I would like to thank my fiancée and also the members of the book omens discord gang, who all had to put up with me bitching about how much I was struggling to get this work done for the last two months. Y'all are the best cheerleaders, thank you so much for your support!

As the dust[1] settled at Tadfield Air Base, Crowley felt something in him, which had been tightly wound since the night he had been handed a baby in a basket, finally begin to uncoil. Entirely unbidden, he felt his lips pull back in a broad grin he could not have stopped even if he’d wanted to.

“He did it,” he observed, somewhat giddy with relief as he turned to look at his companion.

Aziraphale, for his part, did not look as delighted as Crowley felt. There was a smile beginning to bloom on his face, but it was slow like sunrise, as if he was having trouble processing what had just happened. Crowley couldn’t say he blamed him for needing a moment to take it all in. He was pretty sure it was going to take him at least a century to untangle it all. 

If they had that long, anyway. Crowley didn’t think of himself as a gambling demon [2]but he’d be willing to put a substantial amount of money on the odds that Heaven or Hell (or both) were going to be seeking retribution sooner rather than later.

But now wasn’t the moment to reflect on whatever consequences might be forthcoming. There was a cluster of very confused humans who would need some sort of managing, and Crowley was willing to bet that all those unconscious soldiers would be waking up sooner or later. Crowley did not particularly want to deal with the kind of mess they'd be in if they were still hanging around when that happened. He looked to Aziraphale, hoping the angel would have some kind of idea for what the Hel- Heav- _whatever_ they ought to be doing.

Before Aziraphale could say anything, however, a shiny burgundy Bel Air pulled up, and a round-faced, mustachioed man stepped out, calling for Adam and an explanation in equal measure. His face looked familiar, give or take a decade's worth of aging, and Crowley abruptly recognized him as the fellow he'd encountered outside St. Beryl's eleven years and a handful of days prior, who had directed him to Room 3 for the handoff of the Antichrist.

Suddenly, Crowley had an inkling of how all this mix-up with watching the wrong child all these years might have occurred, but there wasn't time to contemplate that. What was _really_ important was staring at the glorious car the man drove.

So that was exactly what Crowley did. It was easier than keeping track of the rant the man was going on as he snagged the young Antichrist by the collar to keep him from scarpering, and the vehicle was a real beaut in all honesty. Not a classic ‘29 Bentley, but she’d been beautifully maintained all the same. She had the look of a car very well loved by her owner.

After several minutes of enraptured gazing at the vehicle, Crowley’s fixation was finally broken by the slam of one of the vehicle’s doors as a gaggle of not at all contrite children were shut into the back seat. Crowley winced at the clamor.

“I apologize for interrupting your— er— tour?” Mr. Young said, addressing Sgt. Shadwell, whom he seemed to have mistaken for military personnel on account of the very large gun he was carrying.[3] “You may be assured there will be strict consequences for my son, and make no mistake.”

“Er… aye…” Shadwell blustered his way through a salute in response.

Mr. Young didn’t seem to know quite what the expected etiquette was when confronted with the American military, so he mirrored the gesture and turned sharply on his heel with the air of someone who is flummoxed and embarrassed to admit it. He hopped behind the wheel of his beautiful car and drove his pouting cargo away.

Aziraphale sighed as he watched the car rumble off in the direction of the front gate. Crowley glanced at him, but Aziraphale was watching the departing humans and did not look up at him.

“Well,” the angel said phlegmatically, “that went down like a lead balloon.”

It took Crowley a moment, and a series of double-takes, but when Aziraphale finally returned his gaze with no smile on his lips but a distinctive twinkle in his eye, he found himself bursting into helpless laughter. Aziraphale swiftly followed and before long the two were clutching each other and howling with laughter, to the utter bewilderment of the other four who stood observing them.

“D’you reckon they’ve gone ‘round the bend?” Shadwell said to Madame Tracy in attempt at whispering that served to hoarsen his already rough voice, but which did absolutely nothing for the volume.

Observing the laughing couple with a keen eye, she replied in a rather more successful undertone: “The things we’ve seen here today would be enough to give anybody a funny turn, I think.”

Anathema and Witchfinder Private Pulsifer approached the other two humans cautiously.[4] “What do we do now, then?” Newt asked.

“I suppose we’d better be getting on our way,” Tracy replied. “I’m quite certain that we aren’t supposed to be here, and we’d really better scaddle.”

Anathema glanced in the direction of Mr. Young’s vehicle, which could just be seen disappearing over the crest of the hill that led to the main gate. “Do you think they’ll be all right?” she wondered. “Getting off the base, I mean?”

While she was speaking, Aziraphale approached the little group, still chuckling lightly and wiping at his eyes, with Crowley close behind him. “Never fear,” he said brightly. “I assure you they should have no trouble getting home.” 

This was not an empty platitude— Crowley could sense the tiny ripple of angelic power that would ensure that the groggy and confused private who was being sent to check the gate would wave the father of the Antichrist through without any questions. He was glad Aziraphale was taking care of it, because he was pretty sure his infernal batteries were going to take a good long while to recharge.

“Book Girl’s got a point, though,” he pointed out. “All these— these soldier people are going to be up and about any minute now. Might be wise for us to bugger off before they get their wits about them, yeah?”

Tracy was wringing her hands. “Oh Mr. Aziraphale, I really don’t think we can fit three on the scooter now that you’re, well…” She made an embarrassed gesture towards the newly re-corporated angel, who glanced down at himself and patted his torso distractedly.

“I suppose not,” Aziraphale said. “But I’m quite sure that Crowley and I can find alternative transportation, you needn’t worry about me.”

His eyes flickered in Crowley’s direction, only for a moment, but long enough for Crowley to catch the plea in them. Aziraphale was doing a good job of hiding it, but he was nearly as frazzled as Crowley was.

“Yeah, ‘course,” he said, with a forced sort of cheerfulness that Aziraphale, at least, could probably see through but which he suspected he would appreciate nonetheless. “We’re plenty resourceful.”

There was a slight relaxing of the tight line that had gathered around Aziraphale’s eyes, so clearly it had been the right thing to say.

“If— if you’re sure,” Tracy said doubtfully. 

“Yeah, we’ll just—” Crowley glanced around, trying to come up with alternative transportation to suggest. His eyes landed on a jeep a few meters away with PROPERTY OF U.S. AIR FORCE emblazoned on a side panel, and contemplated a bit of “permanent borrowing,” but in all honesty the idea of driving anything that wasn’t the Bentley right now stung in places that were too tender to prod. 

“—Take the bus?” Aziraphale suggested.

Crowley nodded, immediately taking to the idea. “Yes, absolutely. Good thinking.”

Tracy looked quite relieved. “If you’re sure you’ll be alright…?” she ventured. He couldn’t be sure, but Crowley thought she’d rather taken a liking to Aziraphale during their corporeal cohabitation. He really couldn’t blame her.

Aziraphale nodded. “Of course, no need to fret about us. And you’ll be all right, getting back to London, won’t you?”

She looked around at the late afternoon sky. “Well, it might be a bit dark by the time we’re getting back at this rate, but we’ll manage.”

“If you don’t think you’ll be safe to drive, there’s an extra room in the cottage I’m renting,” Anathema piped up bravely, ignoring Newt’s frantic head-shaking from where he was standing just out of Shadwell’s direct line of vision. “You could stay with me tonight and head back in the morning.”

Tracy glanced between the young couple, a faint smile lighting on her lips. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she said, not unkindly.

“Not at all,” Aziraphale agreed. “I think, my dear, you’ll find that your scooter will be rather faster than it was before. You should make good time back to London.”

Anathema snapped her fingers, pointing frantically at Aziraphale. “I knew it!” she exclaimed. “You _did_ do something to my bike the other day!” She frowned, confused. “How did you do something to my bike? Or change it back again, for that matter?”

“You, uh, you know them, Anathema?” Newt said warily.

“They hit me with their car a couple days ago,” she said with shrewdly narrowed and deeply suspicious eyes, “and then they gave me a ride and stole my book.”

“Um.” If Newt’s tolerance for the extraordinary events of the day could be likened to a camel’s back, it appeared this statement from Anathema was the proverbial straw. He did not appear to have any coherent reply to this information, and wisely kept his thoughts to himself.

Crowley stuffed his hands into his pockets awkwardly, cocking a jaunty hip in an attempt not to look as guilty about the whole affair as he felt, and not entirely succeeding. “Yeah, uhm, you’re doing all right, aren’t you?” 

“No thanks to you two,” Anathema replied tartly. “Thanks for giving the book back, what on Earth have you done to it?”

Aziraphale glanced at the book in Anathema’s hands and visibly winced. “I really think we ought to be getting along,” he said, excessively loudly. “It’s been… well, under the circumstances, I can’t really say it’s been pleasant, but you’ve all been lovely.” Crowley, for his part, had deep reservations about calling any group that included Shadwell _lovely_ , but he supposed he’d let Aziraphale have his niceties. It had been a _very_ long day. 

Crowley nodded at the sword in Aziraphale’s hands. “What do we do about the Horsepeople’s things?” he asked, leaning in to speak in an undertone in his ear. “Doesn’t seem like they ought to be left lying around.”

“Quite right, yes,” Aziraphale agreed. “I imagine someone will be along to collect these in good time, but it’s best not to leave them lying around.” He clicked his fingers to manifest a large cardboard box and gingerly bent down to lift the broken scales and the tarnished crown off the tarmac, settling them gently into the box. He attempted to settle the sword into the box as well, but found it was too long and he settled for carrying that in his hand.

Taking the box from Aziraphale without a word, Crowley turned back to the little cluster of humans, who were watching them with wide eyes. He briefly debated erasing Aziraphale’s little manifestation trick from their memories, but, well… what the heaven, they’d seen far weirder things today.

The angel, for his part, gave Crowley a pointed look, and without another word they set off, with Crowley giving the little gaggle of befuddled humans a jaunty wave before they started walking. “Back to the village, then?”

“Bit of a hike,” Crowley remarked as they started away.

“Yes, rather.”

They had made it all of fifty meters before a voice called, “Wait! Wait up a minute!” and the patter of footsteps behind them made Crowley glance over his shoulder. Anathema was jogging after them, clutching the singed book under one arm and waving the other as if trying to flag down a low-flying airplane. 

“Hang on,” she said as she closed the gap. “Can we offer you a ride back to town? We’re parked just behind the base, you see, and it’d be a lot quicker than walking.”

Crowley rather suspected, given how wary she’d seemed of them not five minutes ago, that she had some ulterior motive for the invitation. Aziraphale, however, simply beamed at her. “Why thank you, how sweet of you to offer!”

Newt caught up to them only a few moments later, and Aziraphale turned that broad, empty smile on him instead. “Ah yes, I was just saying, it’s very kind of you young people to offer us a ride back to the village.”

“Er. Right,” Newt said, with a worried glance at the witch. “I’ll just… show you to the car, then?”

Anathema gave him a bright grin and veered off in the direction of the tree line, her sensible boots squelching in the damp grass.

“Bit of an odd couple, those two,” Crowley remarked under his breath.

Aziraphale elbowed him in the ribs. “Be nice,” he hissed. Then, after a few moments, he added, “You’re quite right though. A witch and a witchfinder? Hardly a likely match.”

“About as likely as an angel and a demon” Crowley replied, and immediately wished he hadn’t. After everything that had been said between them in the past few days, bringing up the unspoken romantic tension was probably the worst idea he’d had all week.

The angel seemed to agree, as he fidgeted with the pommel of the sword and avoided Crowley’s eyes.

Crowley decided to cope with this by eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation.

“Are you sure about this?” Newt was saying to Anathema in an agitated undertone. “Only, they had _wings_ , Anathema! Great big wings like— like those big eagles they’ve got in Australia, I saw them, I know I did!”

Crowley couldn’t help but grin. “We can actually hear you, you know.”

Anathema turned around, picking up her skirts a bit to avoid tripping over the hem of her dress as she stepped lightly backwards over the grass. “He’s right, though,” she said. “You did have wings earlier. And your auras aren’t like anything I’ve ever seen. Not like those… those _other_ people from before, but not entirely human either. I didn’t notice it the first time we met because I was so out of it from being run over—” Her gaze turned to something like a glare as she cut her eyes directly at Crowley. “—but now that I’m looking at you properly, I don’t know how I missed it.”

Her dark-eyed gaze was hungry as she studied them, hardly a break in her stride, and she reminded Crowley suddenly, vividly, of Eve. “Ah, so that’s why you’ve offered us a ride, then? You’re curious.” He couldn’t have concealed his bright grin if he’d wanted to. “I love curious people.”

Aziraphale nudged him urgently with his elbow. “Hush, Crowley,” he cautioned.

But Crowley was undeterred. “What’s the harm, eh? They’ve already seen Azrael and Satan himself today, not to mention the rest of the Horsepeople. And besides, we’re in enough hot water as it is, what’s it matter if we get made on top of everything else?”

After a moment’s contemplation, Aziraphale chuckled, though it sounded rather strained to Crowley’s well-attuned ears. “I suppose you’re right, my dear. Discretion isn’t going to do us any good now, is it?” He turned his full attention to Anathema. “My name is Aziraphale, and I am an Angel of the Lord— or at least I was, up until two or three hours ago.” He faltered somewhat.

Crowley whipped around to stare at Aziraphale. He couldn’t have… he couldn’t possibly have _Fallen_ , could he? Crowley was sure he would have mentioned something like that. But then again, Aziraphale _had_ been possessing that woman; angels didn’t go around possessing people. Although, Crowley considered, that didn’t necessarily mean they _couldn’t_ , did it? He scrutinized him on planes higher than the physical, reaching out with senses innate to those of angelic stock.[6]

Nope, Aziraphale was definitely still all-angel, as absolutely stuffed full of Grace as ever.

He continued, ignoring— or perhaps oblivious to— Crowley’s suden attention: “I’m afraid by intervening in Armageddon, I’ve rather forsaken old loyalties, as it were. I doubt Heaven will have me back at this point.”

Anathema’s eyes were wide behind her glasses. “Okay, no, wait. So when you—” She pointed at Crowley. “—called him ‘angel,’ that wasn’t some cutesy, lovey-dovey pet name thing? That was… _literal?_ ”

Feeling a bit put on the spot, Crowley simply shrugged; he didn’t think now was the best moment to open _that_ particular can of worms.[5]

Newt, who had been listening intently to these goings-on, chose this moment to ask, “So are you an angel, too, Mr. Crowley?”

“Right species, wrong political party,” Crowley replied with a smile that showed a few too many teeth.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “What he means to say is he’s a _Fallen_ angel,” he said with a long-suffering air.

If Newt’s rather horrified expression was anything to go by, he had connected the dots faster than Anathema, who seemed to still be piecing things together. She gave Crowley a puzzled look. “What—?”

Crowley lowered his sunglasses to give the girl just the briefest glimpse of his inhuman eyes. “Anthony J. Crowley,” he said glibly as he slid the lenses back into place. “Demon. Serpent of Eden. Nice to meet you.”

Anathema, who had still been walking backwards to look at them, tripped over the hem of her skirt and would have fallen were it not for Newt’s timely intervention.

Aziraphale sighed and gave Crowley a disapproving look. “My dear, you really do know how to put a damper on a pleasant conversation,” he observed.

* * *

The ride back into town was mercifully short. Or perhaps “mercifully” wasn’t quite the right word, given that Crowley and Aziraphale were crammed into the back-seat of an electric-blue Wasabi. The bench seat in the back of the woebegone vehicle was absolutely not meant to accommodate anyone over the age of about twelve, let alone two man-shaped beings of regular size.

“Just so you know,” Crowley groused, “this is the worst car in the world.”

“Thanks,” Newt replied, in a tone that Crowley could not definitively identify as sarcastic.

They took the turn off the road that connected the town and the air base, and the first few houses that marked the village of Tadfield came into view.

“You’ll be wanting the bus stop, then?” Newt suggested.

“Actually, could you drop us at the petrol station?” Aziraphale requested. 

Crowley looked at him curiously. “Petrol station? What for?”

“ _Wine_.” 

“I’m sorry, did you just imply you want to drink _petrol station wine?_ What happened to _standards?_ ” Crowley demanded.

As Newt dutifully pulled off the road into the petrol station at the edge of town, Aziraphale shrugged. “It has been a horrid day, and I refuse to cope with it any longer without wine,” he said. “Doesn’t much matter what kind at this point.”

“Cheers,” Anathema mumbled from the front seat.

Newt took the vehicle out of gear, which caused the transmission to make a frankly terrifying grinding noise, and killed the engine. “Just here, then?” he prompted.

“That will do nicely,” Aziraphale replied. “Thank you so much for your kindness, young man.”

“Don’t mention it,” Newt said, and from the expression on his face, he meant it.

The Wasabi was a two-door coup, so Anathema hopped out of the car and tilted the passenger seat forward so that the pair in the back seat could exit. Aziraphale forced his way through the narrow gap between the seat and the frame of the door with some difficulty. 

“Oof, that’s a bit snug” he observed, brushing down his waistcoat while Crowley unfolded his long limbs out of the car behind him, struggling to keep hold of the box containing the scales and crown as he did. “Something of a shame Adam gave me back the same sort of body as my old one; I’m really not built for a squeeze like that!”

Anathema gave him a look that withered the cheerful, conspiratorial smile the angel had been wearing. “Considering you’d tried to fire a gun at him not thirty seconds before, I’d say you’re lucky he gave you your body back at all.”

Aziraphale’s face fell. “Well yes, I— I suppose you’re quite right about that. If you get the chance, do tell him I’m dreadfully sorry about all that.”

Anathema made no reply to this, but settled for glaring at Aziraphale with the sort of baleful look only witches, eldest siblings, and a certain sort of young woman can manage. Considering that Anathema was all three, it was a particularly potent glare.

“Yes, right,” Aziraphale said, shame-faced. 

“Well!” Newt announced loudly, having also stepped out of the car. “Is this where we leave you?”

“Yeah, this’ll do,” Crowley replied. “Which way to the bus stop?”

Newt, who was not at all familiar with Tadfield beyond what he had read in Sergeant Shadwell’s newspapers, gave a helpless sort of shrug and looked to Anathema. Anathema did not take her eyes off Aziraphale, but she did reply, “It’s in front of the old church, just off the green.”

“Oh, about a quarter mile up the road here?” Crowley asked. His recollection of rolling through Tadfield was a bit hazy— he had been extremely preoccupied with keeping his poor car moving at the time— but he thought he recalled the shivery freezer-burn feeling of passing too close to a churchyard earlier in the day.

Anathema nodded. “That’d be it.”

“Well, we’ll be popping along, then. Thanks for the lift. Come on, angel, let’s get your wine.”

Aziraphale headed for the door of the little shop attached to the petrol station, but Crowley was momentarily distracted by the sound of the Wasabi’s engine. Newt was trying to restart the car and the poor thing was making a valiant effort, but it just wasn’t turning over. After a moment’s thought, Crowley shook his head and discretely snapped his fingers.

It would be months before Newt would discover precisely how, but his battered old car had just experienced a serious under-the-hood upgrade.[7]

Inside the petrol station, the bored-looking attendant had emphatically failed to notice a customer walking around holding a large sword. Aziraphale was standing before the small selection of wines and liquors and frowning thoughtfully. 

“Think maybe we’d better buy some Pimm’s and have done with it,” Crowley said, after eyeing the available options skeptically.

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, this looks promising,” he said, lifting a bottle free from the display. His heart didn’t seem to be in it, though. As far as Crowley was concerned, alcohol was alcohol after a day like this; so as long as the ABV was high enough he didn’t much care.

They made the transaction, and left the building, setting off in the direction their puerile chauffeurs had indicated.

* * *

As they walked, Crowley had found himself glancing at Aziraphale with increasing frequency, and by the time they settled onto the bench at the bus stop, he found himself almost constantly staring at him. At first it had just been a reflex, born from a need to reassure himself that the angel was still with him after the events of the last harrowing day, but the more he looked at Aziraphale, the more he started to recognize something not quite right in his expression.

Evening was starting to settle firmly into night, but Crowley didn’t need the last fading glow of sunset to see that the crow’s feet about the corners of Aziraphale’s eyes were deeper-set than they had been as recently as Tuesday. He’d caught glimpses of it at the air base, but now that it was just the two of them, it seemed that Aziraphale’s guard had come down somewhat, and Crowley could see what he’d been trying so hard to conceal from the humans: exhaustion. Exhaustion and _fear_.

They sat there, with a box between them containing objects that looked like a set of balance scales and a crown[8], and Crowley wondered what he ought to say. What there even _was_ to say. So much had happened in the last seventy-two hours, and he felt rather like a balloon that had expected to be popped, but had instead had the helium slowly leaked out.

Aziraphale, for his part, was staring at the sword in his hands. It was safely sheathed, not so much as a spark of divine fire to be seen, but the look in his eyes was worrisome.

“What’s on your mind?” Crowley probed tentatively.

The angel didn’t raise his eyes to meet Crowley’s, seeming transfixed. “To think that this is what would become of my sword,” he murmured, “after all these centuries.” He fell silent again for a moment, worrying at his lower lip as he contemplated the weapon he held. 

At last, though, he looked up at Crowley, and the expression in those ocean-deep eyes was enough to leave him breathless. “You know,” he began, his tone thoughtful and deliberate, “I think you were quite right about what you said that day in Eden. About you doing the good thing and I doing the bad one.”

“Nah, come off it, angel—”

“No, really,” Aziraphale insisted. “I didn’t want to give it any credence at the time, but ever since then I’ve wondered about it, from time to time, and I think after what’s happened today I finally have an answer that satisfies me.”

His smile was bittersweet and Crowley didn’t need any celestial empathy to know that Aziraphale was swimming in self-recrimination. It was an odd look on someone who Crowley knew very well avoided any and all kinds of self-reflection if he could possibly help it, and it compelled him to give voice to his own deeply-buried personal convictions about those long-ago events: “Which one of us did the good thing or the bad thing… I don’t know so much that it matters. What matters is that we did the _right_ thing, yeah?”

Aziraphale’s haunted expression melted into something a little more quizzical. “How do you mean, dear boy?”

Crowley pursed his lips, trying to find a way to articulate what he meant. “I mean… we couldn’t know what would come of what we did, could we? You were just trying to keep them safe and I… I was just trying to give them a _chance_.” He had never said it aloud before, but from the softening in Aziraphale’s eyes, he figured the angel had suspected as much. “What humanity did with what we gave them after the fact, that’s their business, that’s their free will in action. Don’t fret about the sword. The tool itself isn’t bad, right? ‘S just a tool.”

He thought he might actually be onto something, but he was too wrung out to pursue it to any further conclusions. Having successfully chased away some of that haunted look in Aziraphale’s eyes, he figured that was good enough. 

“Anyway, I’m too tired to talk philosophy with you. Give over that bottle, will you?” He reached for the wine Aziraphale had placed on the bench between them and popped the cork out with a flick of a finger. After pocketing the cork, he took a swig and was pleased to find that the questionable red blend they had purchased at the petrol station had obligingly become a 1921 Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 

He offered it to Aziraphale, who swallowed a generous mouthful of wine before immediately pulling a face. “Ooh,” he complained, “brand new taste buds. That’s different.”

Aziraphale could boast of never having been discorporated in all his years on Earth[9], but Crowley had had a run of bad luck from about 1000 BC until sometime in the mid-600s, and had gone through enough new bodies that Dagon had very seriously threatened to reassign him if he couldn’t manage to keep a corporation alive for at least two centuries. As such, he was intimately familiar with the odd experience of having to re-settle into a fresh body. 

“Does that even count as a new body?” he asked. “It looks exactly like the old one.”[10]

Aziraphale frowned and poked thoughtfully at his abdomen. “Well, it does _seem_ the same, but it’s like it’s been reset to factory settings, as it were.”

Crowley choked out a surprised laugh at that. “How on Earth do you know the phrase ‘factory settings?’” he demanded.

“I _do_ own a computer, you know,” Aziraphale sniffed, magnanimously offering the demon the wine bottle.

Crowley made a vague noise of assent and accepted the bottle, taking a deep draught of the wine which— regardless of the opinion of Aziraphale’s newly-minted taste buds— was really a delightful vintage. He wasn’t drinking for the flavor, however. A question had occurred to him, and it was one he didn’t want to ask sober. Once the wine had settled warmly into his stomach, he offered the bottle back and took a fortifying breath.

“So how did it happen, anyway?” he asked. “You getting, erm. I mean…” He made a vague gesture at Aziraphale’s body, then pointed Up towards the darkening sky.

“Oh, it was quite dreadful,” Aziraphale said. He took a fortifying sip of the wine, which caused him to frown and stick his tongue out for a moment. Once he had resolved whatever argument he was having with his own mouth, he wriggled around in his seat as if more comfortably settling in to tell his story. “You see, it all started when I was confronted in the street by the Archangels Uriel and Michael and that great brute Sandalphon Gabriel’s always got hanging about with him these days.”

“You know, I never liked him,” Crowley muttered. “I saw what that bastard did to Sodom and Gomorrah back in the day.”

“Yes, quite,” Aziraphale said grimly. “Anyway, I’m not sure how they found out, but they confronted me about… well, about the Arrangement.” He blushed, and took another swig of wine.

Crowley’s stomach dropped. He’d known Hell had somehow discovered his association with an angel, but the fact that Heaven had as well, apparently simultaneously… Although now that he thought about it, Gabriel and Beelzebub _had_ seemed awfully chummy at the airfield. Hypocrites from the top down— and from the bottom up, as it were. He didn’t know why he was surprised.

“It was a very unpleasant conversation all around, so when I got back to the bookshop, I put a call through to head office. Not—” he hurried to clarify, “—that I was only calling to complain! Of course the much more pressing concern was to try to reach… well, I was trying to reach _God_ , to be perfectly honest.”

Crowley felt his eyebrows climbing towards his hairline in disbelief. “And how did that work out?” he asked warily.

Aziraphale’s posture slumped. “Not very well at all, I’m afraid. I was put through to the Metatron, and I must say, several thousand years in Heaven has not improved Enoch’s tendency towards pomposity one bit. It was—” 

He abruptly cut himself off, a shadow passing behind his eyes that made Crowley want to reach out and pull him into his arms. Clearly whatever had happened, it had shaken Aziraphale deeply. Although he was doing an excellent job of keeping a stiff upper lip, you couldn’t know someone for nearly the entirety of human history and not pick up on their tells. The way his shoulders were hunched in, the way his hands were clenched together and held still in his lap rather than fidgeting absently… even without the haunted expression, Crowley would have been able to read the body language loud and clear. Aziraphale, for all his fretting and fussing, had a sort of unshakeable calm at the center of him that Crowley had rarely seen rattled. Now, though, it was as if the foundations of Aziraphale’s world had been upended… and, he supposed, given the sorts of things the angel had been saying to Gabriel about the Ineffable Plan, maybe it had.

Crowley resolved that, until Aziraphale had recovered his equilibrium, he would have to be the one providing stable ground for once. He could manage that much, surely?

Oblivious to the intentness of Crowley’s attention, Aziraphale collected himself and continued: “Well, it wasn’t a productive conversation, let’s just leave it at that. In any case, that Sergeant Shadwell fellow had come by the shop, I’m sure I don’t know why, and it seems he witnessed the end of my conversation with the Metatron and got rather the wrong impression. He seemed to think I was possessed by a demon.” Crowley couldn’t help but snort with laughter at this, and Aziraphale chuckled a bit over it too. “He seems to have attempted to, er, exorcise me, and in all the kerfuffle I ended up stepping into the transportation circle without making the proper preparations and the body just— _poof!_ ”

Considering Crowley had been having horrible visions of Aziraphale being burned to death inside his bookshop, the truth turned out to be rather tame in comparison. He didn’t know if that made it better or worse. Still, discorporation was unpleasant, no matter how painless the method might be.

Apparently some of this thought process had shown on his face, because Aziraphale nodded. “Yes, I can’t say I enjoyed the experience at all. I’m ever so grateful to Adam for giving me a body back, because I was really not pleased to be without one of my own.” Something seemed to occur to him then, and he added, “I am sorry he doesn’t seem to have done the same for your car.”

Crowley had been trying very, very hard not to think about the Bentley. “‘S’alright,” he mumbled into the mouth of the wine bottle.

“It’s not, though,” Aziraphale said. “I know how much you liked it. Maybe if you concentrated really hard…”

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t be the same. I had it from new, you know.”

“Yes, I know.” His hand made a sudden gesture, as if he’d been about to reach out and touch him, and Crowley aborted the motion by shoving the alcohol into his hand. Aziraphale looked down at the bottle in amazement, then shrugged and took a swig.[11]

He set the bottle aside and fished something out of the inner pocket of his coat, fiddling with it absently. “It seems we’ve both had a rather trying day,” he said, in perhaps the greatest example of understatement of all time. “Still, it’s all worked out for the best. Just imagine how awful it might have been if we’d been at all competent.”

Crowley thought he ought to be offended, and he spluttered a bit in protest before Aziraphale’s tone of wry self-deprecation filtered through and he sighed. “Yeah, point taken.” He nodded at the bit of paper the angel was smoothing out between his fingers. “What is that?”

Wordlessly, Aziraphale handed him the paper. It was singed around the edges, but Crowley recognized it as one of that bloody witch’s prophecies. 

_When alle is ſaid and all is done,_ _  
_ _ye must chooſe your faces wiseley,_ _  
_ _or soon enouff ye will be playing with Fyre._

Not ominous at all, then.

“So this is the final one of Agnes’s prophecies?” he asked.

Aziraphale nodded. “As far as I know.”

“And Adam’s human again?”

“Again, as far as I can tell, yes.”

Well. That was some consolation, anyway. Crowley made a mental note that, if they actually managed to survive whatever retribution was surely coming their way, he ought to check up on the boy. Do the godfather thing properly, make sure he was getting along all right and wasn’t too traumatized.

Their conversation continued, meandering through the subject of God’s plan. But before Crowley could really delve into the subject, they were interrupted by the arrival of a deliveryman from the International Express, come to collect the relics of the Horsepersons. Crowley found himself wondering whether Aziraphale would be all that eager to hand over his sword a second time, given how he’d been fretting about what humanity had done with his gift for all these years. But to his surprise and no small amount of pride, Aziraphale presented the sword to the deliveryman with little fanfare, and signed to authorize the collection of the items.

“Oh there’s the bus,” Aziraphale exclaimed happily just as the International Express driver took his leave. As he studied the approaching vehicle, however, his brow furrowed. “It says Oxford on the front.”

Crowley grinned. “Yeah, but he’ll drive to London anyway. He just won’t know why.”

“I suppose I should get him to drop me off at the bookshop,” Aziraphale mused.

Crowley whipped around to face him, almost spat out a harsh reminder that the bookshop was gone, but at the look on Aziraphale’s face he realized that the angel absolutely had not forgotten that fact. He was looking for something from Crowley, but he didn’t know how to ask for it.

“It burned down, remember?” he prompted gently.

Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley was horrified to see the beginnings of tears sparkling in his eyes. Eager to reassure him any way he could, he added, “You can stay at my place, if you like.”

Something flickered in Aziraphale’s eyes, something Crowley might almost have called hope, but what he said was: “I don’t think my side would like that.”

And Crowley understood what it was Aziraphale was looking for. Everything had changed. His world had fallen apart. He had rebelled against Heaven but he hadn’t Fallen, the bookshop he had called home for centuries had burned to the ground, and now he was without somewhere to belong. 

Well, he didn’t know if the angel would think it a suitable substitute for what he’d lost, but he could at least offer him something to cling to.

“You don’t have a side anymore,” he said gently. “Neither of us do. We’re on our own side.” 

The smile Aziraphale gave him was watery and small, but it was genuine, and that was all Crowley could have asked for, under the circumstances.

* * *

Aziraphale followed Crowley down the length of the bus, to a seat just opposite the rear doors. Strategic, he suspected, in case they needed to make a quick exit. It wasn’t likely, not this soon, but he wasn’t surprised that Crowley had thought of it.

The demon didn’t so much sit down as collapse into a window seat. As Aziraphale settled down next to him,[12] he noted that Crowley looked even more exhausted than he had a few minutes before. Aziraphale supposed whatever miracle he had worked to encourage the bus driver to take them somewhere rather closer to home than Oxford must have really taken it out of him, the poor thing. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what Crowley had been through since their last argument in the streets of Soho— though he intended to ask if the right moment presented itself— but it seemed he’d had as wretched a day as Aziraphale had, if not more so.

Without even thinking about it, he reached out and took Crowley’s hand.

Immediately, he wondered if it had been too bold a step.

Crowley’s glasses had slid down his nose a bit, so Aziraphale caught the slight widening of those serpent’s eyes, and the flickering sidelong glance the demon gave him. After a moment of painful hesitation, Aziraphale caught the tiniest upturn of Crowley’s lips and felt him give their joined hands a comforting squeeze.

The angel relaxed, and settled back more comfortably in his seat as the bus pulled away. As the lights of Tadfield receded behind them, an angel and a demon held fast to each other’s hand in companionable quiet.

But no quiet can last forever. As the bus made the turn to merge onto the M40, Crowley shifted in his seat. It was a wriggling, discomfited motion that Aziraphale had seen a thousand times over the millennia. Crowley had something on his mind and was searching for the best way to say it.

“Something on your mind, my dear?” he prompted, when nothing was forthcoming aside from more squirming.

Crowley didn’t look at him, but said, “They’ll be coming for us, of course.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Yes, I expect they shall.”

There was a pensive set to Crowley’s mouth, the lines around his eyes deepening as he stared holes into the plastic seat-backing in front of him. “They’ll make you Fall, I expect,” he said. Aziraphale rather thought he’d been aiming for gruff, but his tone mostly ended up sounding plaintive. “Getting up in Gabriel’s face like you did? Openly opposing the Heavenly agenda? That’s the sort of thing that earns you a one-way trip to the proverbial basement, angel.”

Despite himself, Aziraphale couldn’t help but chuckle. “Oh, I doubt that very much.” At Crowley’s incredulous look, he explained: “My dear, I’ve never been at any risk of Falling. No angel has, not since that whole nasty business with the nephilim. I suppose they might make an exception for some low-ranking file clerk type who _really_ went off the rails, but me? Hardly.”

Crowley’s eyes were visibly wide behind his sunglasses. “What do you mean?”

“Direct orders from Michael,” Aziraphale explained. “Every Fallen angel is just another demon in Satan’s employ, so making any angel Fall these days would be unwise, but if you’re asking why I, personally, don’t fear Falling… well, I may be a bit of a rubbish angel, but I’m still the only one who’s been here on Earth all six thousand years of its existence. My tactical knowledge alone would be a boon to the opposition, and my superiors have always known that.”

A strangled sort of noise escaped from Crowley’s throat. “You’re not,” he said.

Aziraphale looked at him quizzically. “Not what?”

Crowley chewed fretfully on his lower lip for a moment before he managed to blurt out, “You’re not a rubbish angel. You’re a great angel. The best angel.”

It was almost too much for Aziraphale’s fragile grasp on calm to handle. He was frightfully aware of how tightly he was gripping Crowley’s fingers, but he couldn’t make them relax.[14] With his voice rather impressively steady if he did say so himself, he said, “You’re sweet to say so, Crowley, but please don’t try and flatter me. I know what I am.”

Crowley was openly gaping at him now, and Aziraphale was quite sure it was only the presence of a sparse number of other passengers scattered throughout the bus that kept him from whipping off his sunglasses to stare at him more directly. “Azir— angel— I— _what?_ ”

“Well _really_ ,” Aziraphale said, quite put off by his companion’s disquieting reaction. “There’s no need to behave as if it’s so shocking that I’m Heaven’s… well, Heaven’s black sheep, as it were.”

“Always hated that idiom,” Crowley said faintly.

“Yes, so let’s just say no more about it,” Aziraphale replied crossly. “Now, you wanted to discuss the fact that both of our employers are likely to be banging down our doors sooner rather than later to enact retribution, yes?”

Crowley looked very much like he wanted to argue, but to Aziraphale’s very great relief, he subsided. “Fine,” he said, “if they’re not going to punish you with Falling, what do you expect they’ll be doing to punish you?”

He shrugged. “Well, it was demotion last time I managed to make such a hash of things, but given how angry Michael was when they confronted me on the street earlier, I suspect a reprimand and a removal to a position in a lower choir isn’t going to be sufficient this time.”

The demon gaped at him. “I— are you telling me _the Archangel Michael_ came down to Earth to tell you off about trying to stop the apocalypse?”

“No, actually,” Aziraphale said guiltily. “It was the Archangels Michael _and_ Uriel and their favorite bully-boy, and they… well, it seems they found out about the Arrangement and took issue with my conduct as such.”

Crowley’s eyes went wide. “So _Heaven’s_ onto us about that, too?”

Aziraphale nodded.

The demon frowned, staring into space over Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I knew my lot— er, my old lot, I suppose— had figured us out. When Hastur and Ligur came to collect me, they made it pretty clear they knew we’re friends.”

“It is rather odd that both of our respective sides would catch on within the same twenty-four hours,” Aziraphale mused.

Suddenly, Crowley sat up ramrod straight.[13] “Aziraphale… didn’t Gabriel and ol’ Beelzebub seem awfully… _chummy_ , back at the air base?”

Aziraphale thought he could see where Crowley was leading with this. “They did, rather. You don’t think—”

“—that our bosses have been communicating across party lines for Somebody only knows how long?” Crowley growled. “I absolutely do think that.”

Aziraphale gasped in outrage. “Well I _never!_ After how many centuries of us having to sneak around and hide our relationship and pretend not to know each other in the paperwork, and they have the audacity to be all… all _buddy-buddy?_ ”

‘ _Buddy-buddy?_ ’ Crowley mouthed, bemused, though he did not interrupt.

“After all that, and then they have the nerve— the absolute _cheek!_ — to get angry at me for having the _audacity_ to have a friend?” He let out a frustrated scoff, and if he hadn’t been so committed to holding Crowley’s hand, he would have crossed his arms and huffed to emphasize his point.

Crowley, for his part, stared at him with a mouth that could have caught a sizable number of flies for several seconds before bursting into raucous laughter. A couple of young people at the front of the bus glanced back curiously as the demon chortled his way through over a mile of highway.

“Oh angel,” he sighed as he surreptitiously lifted his glasses a few centimeters to wipe at his streaming eyes, “you’ve no idea how badly I needed a good laugh after the day I’ve had.”

Aziraphale was baffled by what in the world Crowley found so amusing about all this, but nonetheless patted their joined hands with his free one. “Yes, it’s been rather a rough afternoon for both of us I should say.”

Crowley slumped back in his seat. “That doesn’t half cover it.”

The angel glanced around at the gaggle of humans sharing the bus with them. Now was, perhaps, not the best venue for chatting casually about their misadventures in the last twelve hours or so. Any other day it would have been the work of a moment for one or both of them to divert the attention of their fellow passengers, but Aziraphale thought that if he had to do even one more major miracle tonight, he very well might keel over and discorporate all over again, and Crowley honestly looked worse. 

He said, “Once we’ve a bit more privacy, I’ll tell you about my day if you tell me yours?” 

Crowley nodded.

Silence fell over them for a few moments before he said quietly, “I really don’t want this to be our last night alive, Aziraphale.”

“Nor I, dear boy, nor I. And I do believe I have a bit of an idea about that but—” He cast a significant glance toward the elderly woman sitting not three rows away from them. “—perhaps it would be best if I saved it for back at yours?”

Something about the set of Crowley’s mouth relaxed. “Yeah, all right then.”

They smiled at each other, and a comfortable quiet fell between them. The bus rolled on from Oxfordshire towards London. They did not let go of each other’s hands.

* * *

They rode the bus all the way to a stop on the north end of Hyde Park, only a few blocks from Crowley’s flat. Just before they disembarked, Crowley finally took his hand back; Aziraphale did him the courtesy of pretending not to notice that he had slipped the driver a substantial tip. After how unusually volatile Crowley had been this week, he rather suspected that his friend would not appreciate having his little acts of kindness pointed out.

London was quiet and rain-washed, the streets gleaming with lights reflecting off the wet pavement. There were relatively few cars on the road by this time of night, and not all that many pedestrians either, so for the most part, it was just the two of them making their way through the streets of Mayfair. 

“Oh, I should mention,” Crowley spoke up suddenly, when they were only a few blocks from his building, “I had to, er, make use of that insurance policy you got for me.”

Aziraphale’s blood ran cold. “What?”

“Yeah, there’s a great mess of melted demon in my flat right now. Get it cleaned up, no problem, but I figured I ought to warn you because let me tell you, it’s _nasty_.”

There was something churning wretchedly in the pit of Aziraphale’s stomach. “You… you used holy water?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you, angel.”

Crowley’s tone was cavalier, but Aziraphale took note of the way his hands were thrust deep into his jacket pockets and he was licking his lips in that fidgety, serpentine way that meant he was worried about something. He took hold of himself forcibly, wrenching himself back to calmness, because it wouldn’t do to fall apart when Crowley was so clearly rattled.

“Who— I mean—?”

“Ligur,” Crowley said, before Aziraphale could even spit his question out. “Was hoping to get Hastur, but the bastard didn’t have the decency to even get splashed.”

Taking a deep breath of the damp evening air to settle his nerves, Aziraphale put a few pieces together. “So two Dukes of Hell were dispatched to deal with you, two Archangels were sent to confront me… it seems our respective head offices really have been collaborating more than we thought,” he mused. 

Crowley nodded, wordlessly.

“So that was the ‘old friend’ you were talking about when I rang you earlier?”

He nodded again.

Aziraphale contemplated this. When he had found Crowley earlier that day, while he was still searching for a body to inhabit, there had been an unmistakable crack in the demon’s voice as he spoke about losing his best friend. Somehow, though, he doubted that Duke Ligur was the sort of person Crowley would get choked up over having had to, well, _dispatch_. He supposed the turn of phrase during their brief telephone call must have been another puckish idiom of Crowley’s, then.

In fact, if he were being honest with himself, he didn’t half wonder if maybe the lost friend Crowley had referred to later on mightn’t have been… well…

But it didn’t do to just _assume_ things.

“I am very sorry you went through that,” he said, sincerely. “I’m sure it must have been a dreadful ordeal to have your, er, colleagues sent after you like that.”

Crowley shrugged. “Nah. I mean, not wild about having to actually use the holy water— seriously, it’s _vile_ , what that does to demons. Wasn’t sure I’d even have the guts to go through with it until it came right down to it. But, well, I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. And if there’s anybody worth melting into a little pile of goo, it’s those two, you know? You don’t get into a position of power in Hell by being pleasant, if you take my meaning.”

By this point, they had reached the street door of Crowley’s flat. The building was a squat, brutalist nightmare, all black steel and dark, treated glass that no doubt kept the sunlight from being too scorching for the occupants on the other sides of the large windows, but which gave the exterior of the building a dingey look that Aziraphale could not find pleasant.

It was too late for the building’s doorman to still be outside, so Crowley punched in the security code to let them in. He gave a brief, friendly nod to the night security behind the desk in the lobby as he escorted Aziraphale quickly to the elevator. The brass-plated doors opened swiftly, and soon enough they were safely deposited on the penthouse level. Because of course Crowley lived in the fashionable top suite of the building. Aziraphale wasn’t sure why he had expected anything else.

Truth be told, Aziraphale wasn’t sure quite what he had expected that Crowley’s flat would look like. He had seen the building before, but on the handful of occasions they had met up here in the past, Crowley had always come down to the street rather than inviting him up. Aziraphale had to confess he’d been curious, but he’d done his best not to speculate. It didn’t seem... appropriate. 

He’d had some vague notions about a dark color scheme to match Crowley’s wardrobe and the dour exterior of the building itself. It hadn’t seemed to suit Crowley at all when he imagined it, so he had spruced his mental image up with a few ideas about luxurious rugs and expensive electronics, because Crowley had always enjoyed indulging himself in the finer things humans managed to think up. Now that the opportunity to actually see how Crowley lived was upon him, however, he found himself burning with curiosity.

Thankfully, Crowley didn’t keep him in suspense long once they reached the building, leading him directly passed the oblivious doorman and up to his own door on the top floor with little fanfare.

“Well, I guess this is home sweet home,” he announced, pushing the door open.

Aziraphale wasn’t sure quite what he had expected that Crowley’s flat would look like. He had seen the building before, but on the handful of occasions he had met the demon here in the past, Crowley had always come down to the street. Aziraphale had to confess he’d been curious, but he’d done his best not to speculate. It didn’t seem appropriate. He’d had some vague notions about a dark color scheme to match Crowley’s wardrobe, and a few ideas about luxurious rugs and expensive electronics, but beyond that he had tried not to wonder.

Whatever he’d anticipated seeing when Crowley opened the door to the flat, what he found was certainly contrary to his expectations. Stepping inside, he found himself in an… well, generous would be calling it austere. Aziraphale expected that it would be nice enough if it were lit properly, all that pale stone and bleached concrete, but the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the outer wall were heavily shaded. With a snap of his fingers, all the pull shades snapped up simultaneously, affording views of the glittering lights of Mayfair beyond, and illuminating the room.

Aziraphale’s breath caught in his chest.

“Oh! Oh my dear, it looks like—” _Heaven_ , he thought but didn’t say, holding his tongue as the implications caught up with him. He glanced over at the demon, who was watching him from behind a barrier of dark glass. “Oh _Crowley_.”

Crowley’s expression went a bit pinched. “Don’t say it,” he said tersely.

Aziraphale nodded his acquiescence, and allowed Crowley to point him in the direction of a sitting room that would have been quite charming in a minimalist, modern sort of way if it weren’t for the vaguely sterile air of the whole place. He sank primly onto a white leather couch that didn’t even have the decency to be as comfortable as it looked— which was not at all. 

It really _did_ feel like Heaven, Aziraphale reflected, which was not at all reassuring considering how the last twenty-four hours had gone for him. Rather than letting the enormity of that swallow him, he chose instead to reflect on the fact that a psychiatrist— if a professional suitably qualified for the task could have existed— would probably have an absolute field day analyzing Crowley’s home. A dim and hazy reflection of the world he'd been cast out from said a number of things about him. If it weren’t all so terribly depressing to consider, Aziraphale might have laughed. As it was, he mostly just wanted to hug his friend. 

To be fair, he had been wanting to do that for several hours anyway, and hadn’t quite worked up the nerve. There were a few things he rather felt needed saying before he could get around to embraces.

While Aziraphale was contemplating interior design, Crowley had rummaged up a bottle of wine from somewhere. He all but collapsed on the sofa next to him. His ever-present sunglasses were missing, barriers down in the relative safety of his flat.

“Can’t find my stemware,” he announced, “and I haven’t the energy left to miracle any up.”

Aziraphale didn’t see that it mattered much. That bottle of shoe polish they’d bought at the Tadfield petrol station had passed back and forth between them easily enough. He didn’t see why a decent wine should be any different. Wordlessly, he raised a finger and the cork shot out of the bottle with a resounding _pop_ and flew off into a corner somewhere. Not the most elegant execution, he supposed, but the bottle was open which was the point.

Crowley gave him an amused look, but said nothing. He took a long swig direct from the bottle before handing it to Aziraphale, who accepted it gratefully. There wasn’t enough wine in the whole world for the kind of day they’d had.

After a few minutes of drinking in silence, Crowley was the one who finally broke the silence.In an incredible display of feigned nonchalance. Crowley had spent the last several minutes fretting over having to start a conversation he absolutely did not want to have.[15]

He asked, “What the hell happened today, angel?”

Aziraphale, who had been spending the last several minutes trying desperately to find a way to avoid answering that exact question, sighed. He grabbed the bottle of wine back out of Crowley’s hands and book a hearty swig.

“It’s all a bit mortifying, I’m afraid,” he said once he felt ready to give the wine back. “You see, I tried… well, I tried to do as I ought, and contact Heaven about having located the Antichrist.”

Crowley made a face. “Given how the last six or so hours have gone, I’m guessing the conversation didn’t go well?”

Aziraphale shook his head. He stared down at his hands, which in the absence of the wine bottle had twisted themselves up in his lap… and he let out a heavy sigh. “Oh Crowley,” he said, “I feel I must apologize to you.”

Crowley’s expression was inscrutable. “You don’t need—”

“But I _want_ to,” Aziraphale interrupted, in a tone that would brook no argument, “because I _lied_ to you. I worked out where Adam was from Agnes’s prophecies on Friday morning, and I lied to you about it.”

Crowley made some sort of noise in his throat that sort of sounded like it was meant to mean _‘don’t worry about it’_ but mostly came across strangled and a little sad.

Aziraphale plunged recklessly on, “I wanted to, you know. The very first thought I had when I finished reading the book and realized where I could find the Antichrist was ‘ _oh, I ought to tell Crowley_ ,’ because that’s what I _always_ think whenever something interesting happens, I always want to tell you first. And then I realized no, that’s what I _wanted_ to do, not what I _should_ do, and that what I _should_ do was march myself right up to Heaven and tell Michael or Gabriel about it.” 

He swallowed hard at that, cutting off the flow of words. He had known for a long time what Heaven truly was. He _had_ . But he’d always hoped… well… _anyway_ , he’d always kept it tucked as far back in his mind as he could, refusing to look at it directly until the events of the last forty-eight hours (give or take a few minutes of miraculously halted time) had forced him to confront it directly. And now that he’d looked everything over properly, his former ways of dealing with everything seemed unacceptably cowardly in hindsight.

Crowley, unaware of the bent of Aziraphale’s thoughts, took advantage of his silence to observe, “You were trying to do the right thing, angel, s’hardly a crime.”

“Yes, but it was wrong of me,” Aziraphale insisted. “I don’t know if good intentions amount to much if all that comes out of it is hurting people, you see? And it’s all the worse, because the person I hurt the most was… well… you.”

Crowley sighed, and set the wine bottle down on his end table with a dull thud. He sat forward, bracing himself with his elbows on his knees. “It’s not a big deal,” he said tiredly.

But Aziraphale shook his head. “It _is_ though. I… you see, I marched myself up to Heaven on Friday afternoon, all set to tell Gabriel and the lot that I’d worked out where the Antichrist was, except that when it came right down to it, I— well, I didn’t. Because even though what I should have done— thought I should have done, rather— was tell Heaven, but what I _wanted_ to do was to tell you.”

He could see that this statement had some kind of profound effect on Crowley. The demon’s posture straightened up suddenly, gaze intent. However, Crowley didn’t say a word, simply gazed at Aziraphale with pupils gone rather wider than usual.

The angel took this as an invitation to continue: “You were right, of course. We’re on our own side. We have been for far longer than I’ve been willing to admit. And I knew that deep down even then, standing in front of half the Archangels, but still I quarreled with you and I turned you away at every turn these past few days. After everything we’ve been through, I still did, and it took the Metatron himself telling me in no uncertain terms that Heaven had no interest in saving any lives that I finally admitted to myself what a wretched coward I’ve been.”

“I’m still surprised you got a direct line in to the Metatron.”

Aziraphale was powerless to stop the churlish pout he knew was forming on his lips. “I was _trying_ to communicate with Herself,” he said sourly. “But it seems getting a connection straight to God isn’t the _done thing_ these days.”

“Hasn’t been the done thing for eons, angel.”

“Yes well it was a bloody great waste of time, and led to my being discorporated as it was,” Aziraphale sighed.

“It’s just a bit ridiculous that you, of all people, stepped into a transportation circle without the proper preparations. You know that, right?”

“Well you don’t need to sound so incredulous!” Aziraphale huffed. “I was under a great deal of stress and had an unwashed Scotch homophobe shouting all manner of unpleasant things at me. I’d a right to be a touch discombobulated!”

“No offense meant, angel,” Crowley said, raising a hand in an appeasing gesture. “It’s only that you’re the sort of person who checks the package directions six times before you start making stovetop rice. It’s ironic is all.”

Aziraphale felt that this was undeserving of any direct response and said instead, “You said the bookshop burnt down. I suppose in all the kerfuffle I must have knocked over one of the ritual candles.”

Crowley’s expression went a bit pinched. “Must have.” There was a long stretch of silence before he added: “As long as we’re apologizing… I’ve got a few of my own.”

Aziraphale tilted his head curiously. “Whatever do you mean?”

The demon heaved a great sigh and leaned back against the couch. He no doubt intended the posture to look louche and nonchalant, but the squeaking of the leather and the uncomfortable hunched set of his shoulders told another story. “I shouldn’t have given you an ultimatum, Aziraphale,” he said, voice soft. “That was unfair. You want to talk about cowardice? Suggesting we run off to Alpha Centauri was a coward’s gambit and we both know it.”

On impulse, Aziraphale reached out and laid a hand on Crowley’s knee. “You were frightened, my dear.”

Crowley scoffed. “Frightened enough to be worth abandoning the Earth over? Worth abandoning humanity? My—” He glanced away, seeming to wish for a way to hide his gaze. “—my principles?”

Six thousand years of impulse told Aziraphale to scoff and dismiss the idea of a demon with _principles_. But six thousand years by Crowley’s side told him that he didn’t think he’d ever known anyone who spent as much time wrestling with ethical questions as Crowley did— and that was saying something, as Aziraphale had been rather chummy with that Socrates fellow for awhile there. It would have almost been stranger if Crowley hadn’t had principles than the other way around. That was just who he was.

As a result of these two conflicting inclinations, though, Aziraphale found himself stuck for anything to say in response. He settled for patting Crowley’s knee again and saying, “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

But Crowley shook his head. “Nah, it’s true. I let myself get all caught up in paranoia and I was so scared of what would happen once Armageddon started up that I just…”

He seemed to struggle for words.

“Spiralled?” Aziraphale suggested. 

“Yeah, that.”

Aziraphale gave him a sympathetic smile. “I won’t pretend it didn’t put me in a dreadfully difficult position, but I don’t think you need to stew in your own juice over it.”

Crowley snorted. “‘ _Stew in my own juice?_ ’ Really?” 

“Oh _you!_ You laugh but it’s not as though your vernacular is any more comprehensible!”

Crowley gasped in mock outrage, clearly fighting back a smile. “Me? I’m hip with the times, angel!”

Aziraphale gave him a fond scowl. “I honestly don’t know what hips have to do with anything,” he said, and paused just long enough for Crowley to get in one good outraged sputter before he cracked a smile and continued, “but I’m quite certain that the last time I heard that turn of phrase in the common parlance in the way you’re using it was the 1980s.”

Crowley outright cackled at that, delighted to have been caught on the wrong foot. “Oh angel,” he said, “you’re a gem.” He shook his head, and his grin was so fond and so warm, hooking into something in Aziraphale’s chest and tugging it right out of himself and into the space between them. 

Impetuously, Aziraphale followed it. He found himself leaning in close to Crowley without really thinking too much about what he was doing. Following impulse had served him very well today and he rather thought he was on a roll as he leaned in to kiss the demon who had stood by him through the entirety of human history.

* * *

It took several seconds for Crowley to realize why Aziraphale was leaning into him so suddenly. But as the angel’s eyes fluttered shut, it occurred to him that he was about to be kissed by the one being in all of Creation he’d been dreaming of kissing since… well, since he didn’t know when.[16]

Time took on something of a sticky quality, and Crowley wasn’t entirely sure whether he’d put the metaphorical brakes on the universe for a second time that day or whether he’d simply ascended to such a level of emotional overexertion that the gears of his brain were working at double speed to compensate.

The urge to simply let it happen was a temptation greater than anything Crowley had ever unleashed on humanity. He wanted to kiss Aziraphale; Aziraphale wanted to kiss him. These were practically fundamental truths about the universe at this point. And if this might be their last night on Earth, Crowley wanted to make it memorable.

Ah, but that was the rub, wasn’t it?

He tried desperately to steady his thoughts and process the impending kiss rationally. He had a feeling, despite how badly he’d wanted this, that it wasn’t quite right, but he wasn’t sure how, exactly.

Aziraphale had mentioned that he had some thoughts about Agnes’s final prophecy. Crowley trusted him implicitly, and he knew that for all that Aziraphale could be completely gormless on an alarmingly frequent basis, the angel was also the smartest person he knew[17] and if he had an idea it was probably a pretty good one. This wasn’t their last night on Earth. It couldn’t be. They still had a future on this mad, wonderful little dirtball. A future, perhaps, _together_.

For a few blistering hours that day, Crowley had had to contemplate the possibility of an existence without Aziraphale. That had given him a chance to reflect on the time they’d shared, every furtive glance and unspoken promise, and it had made one thing very, very clear to him: whatever else it was he and Aziraphale had shared over the centuries, whatever else they’d been to each other, the fact was that theirs was a love story. Maybe _the_ love story, the one that had been playing out practically since the invention of Time, and certainly since the birth of Humanity. They’d been slowly carving out room in their lives for each other, entwining until the possibility of real separation was impossible, for over six thousand years. 

Did he really want all that steady progress to come to a head now? Like this? With Aziraphale vulnerable and unsteady, reeling from having thrown away his place in Heaven and grasping for something, anything, to steady himself? Or, for that matter, when he himself was so dizzy and desperate from everything that had happened?

Crowley might not be quite ready to admit it to anyone but himself, but he was just a bit of a romantic at heart. Maybe there was something honest about the two of them finally falling into each other after an exhausting, wretched, terrifying day, and finding comfort in each other… but was that really what he wanted to be the resolution after all these years of denying themselves?

It would be unfair to them both for it to finally resolve like this. And for his own emotional security, Crowley did not think he could stand it if Aziraphale finally reached out to him under conditions like this. He suspected that somewhere deep down there would always be a seed of doubt if this was how Aziraphale closed the space between them. He would always wonder if he had only finally reached out to him because he needed an anchor.

Aziraphale loved him. He knew that. For all that Aziraphale’s equivocation and mixed messages had given him fits over the years, he couldn’t really doubt it for long. If he opened his empathic sense up as wide as it would go, he could feel it radiating from the angel. And, in a more human sense, he could see it in the way they interacted, the way Aziraphale would light up at the sight of him. And of course he loved Aziraphale in return. How could he not? 

But loving each other for thousands of years hadn’t brought them over the final hurdle in their relationship, had it? 

Decision made, Crowley blinked, forcing himself back into alignment with Time.

Aziraphale’s lips were so close he could feel his breath, and stopping this before it went to far was so, _so_ hard. But he was resolved, and placed a firm hand in the center of the angel’s chest, holding him back.

Ocean eyes blinked open, and Aziraphale gave him a puzzled look. “Crowley?”

Crowley sucked in a shaky breath, gently pushing him a few inches back to give them both a bit of breathing space. “Not— not like this,” he croaked.

Aziraphale looked mortified, but nodded. He fussed with his collar, avoiding Crowley’s eyes. “Of course,” he said. “I understand. Long— long day.”

“Y-yeah.”

A spectacularly embarrassed silence descended for several long seconds and Crowley really was— how had Aziraphale put it? ‘Stewing in his own juice.’ What a mess, the pair of them.

“The prophecy!” he blurted out. “You said! Earlier! You’d, uh, you’d figured out something about Agnes’ last prophecy!”

This exceptionally coherent icebreaker did not seem to improve Aziraphale’s mood. 

Reluctantly, he said, “Well, I think I’ve worked out what it means we should do, but I don’t think you’re going to like it...”

* * *

“You’re absolutely sure this is necessary?” Crowley asked, staring wretchedly at the hand Aziraphale was handing out to him.

Aziraphale sighed. “ _Yes_ , Crowley, we’ve been over this. Agnes could be frustratingly vague at times, but her prophecies also tended to be extremely literal. ‘Playing with Fyre,’ as written, can only be a reference to Hell, which means your side is coming for you. And ‘choosing our faces’ is—”

“—a reference to swapping our appearances so that our respective head offices grab the wrong person, yes, I _know_ ,” he groused. “I’m only saying, can’t we just swap corporations and have done?”

The angel took his hand back for the moment, rubbing his palms together with a gusty sigh. “I’m afraid so,” he said. “If we just swapped bodies on the physical plane, it would be obvious almost immediately if anyone looked at us on any higher plane. I’m afraid we’ve got to, er… _commingle_. As it were.”

Crowley found himself fidgeting with the wine cork from the second bottle of Merlot he had retrieved when Aziraphale had started talking about _essences_ and _higher planes_ and things that sounded much too intimate for Crowley to cope with without more wine in his belly and something to do with his hands. “You’re positive?” he pushed, aware that his tone was embarrassingly close to whining at this point. “I mean it’s all a bit, er, ‘ _easier than air with air_ ,’ if you’ll excuse the metaphor.”[18]

He was not at all prepared for this. Hell, he hadn’t even been prepared for _kissing_ , and now Aziraphale was suggesting something that fringed on the most intimate act a pair of celestial beings could engage in.[19] And it wasn’t even something they were doing because they loved each other and wanted that intimacy! It was just part of a half-baked plan to save both their skins from the wrath of Satan. Even by Aziraphale’s usual standards of denial, this was a whole new level of displacement, and Crowley hated that he legitimately could not think of any better solution.

But as embarrassed as Crowley was by the whole affair, Aziraphale seemed somehow more so as he turned a florid shade of pink and folded his arms defensively. “I didn’t realize the idea of intimacy with me was more repulsive to you than _dying_ ,” he sniped.

It occurred to Crowley quite abruptly how this might all look in the wake of his reaction to Aziraphale’s previous attempt at intimacy. How it might, in the proper light, be something that could be construed as a rejection on top of a rejection.

 _Fuck_.

“Okay, look,” he said heavily, “It’s not that I don’t— I mean, not that I wouldn’t _want_ — it’s just a lot all at once, you see?”

Aziraphale nodded. His expression was still pinched and uncomfortable, but some of the tension around his mouth had relaxed. “I absolutely understand. You don’t think it’s the same for me?”

“I— well—” Crowley considered that. “Er, fair enough.”

“Believe me, Crowley, I wouldn’t suggest rushing us into something like this if I wasn’t absolutely sure it’s our best chance at surviving. With everything we’ve already been through, surely we can’t give up now just because it’s— it’s _uncomfortable_ , or embarrassing? We’re so close to making it through to the other side, to being on _our own side_ , and I for one want to see it through.”

Crowley closed his eyes, breathing in deep before letting out a trembling sigh. “Right. You’re right. I’m sorry I’m making this difficult.”

Aziraphale seemed to be trying to not to smile, but the crinkle at the corner of his eyes gave him away. “My dear, you have never made anything easy on yourself even once in your entire life; I don’t know why you think I’d expect you to start now.”

Well that was just an insultingly accurate assessment of his character, wasn't it? Not that he was about to cop to it. “Excuse me, what do you think the Arrangement was? An excuse to get out of work now and again make life easier for myself!” Only partially true, but easier than the vulnerable complete truth.

Aziraphale, bless him, let him have it. “Yes, well, all that aside, I really think this is our best chance of getting out of this alive. I do wish I had a better idea of what was coming, but Agnes isn't very clear about anything face-choosing bit."

"I can venture a guess," Crowley offered morosely. He had an unfortunate amount of direct experience with the sort of retribution Hell favored. Furthermore, he'd been warned, eleven years ago when all this started.

"Yes, I can as well," Aziraphale said, sounding only somewhat less glum. "This is exactly what I was always afraid of, you know. That we'd be found out and you'd end up paying the price for it."

"That _I'd_ pay the price? Angel, what about you? Heaven knows too, and you said yourself that they've already sent Archangels to confront you once already."

Aziraphale sighed. "Yes, I must admit I'm worried about that. But I've been thinking about that, you see. They came after me when they thought I was going to Fall— even called me a 'fallen angel' but if that were going to happen, it would have by now, you see? If it were going to happen, it would have by now. And given that lines of communication between our respective sides are rather more open than we were aware, I'll wager that whatever punishment is being planned for us, it's something that we can make it through as long as I take your place."

"You talk about it like I'm the only one in danger," Crowley reiterated.

Immediately, Aziraphale looked disquieted. "I rather have to," he said. "I have spent thousands of years afraid for you. It's familiar to me to put your safety first."

"But—"

"No buts," the angel said firmly. "If Heaven wants to punish me, it will likely be in the form of a reprimand or exile of some kind— which, at this point, is exactly what I want to happen. I'm done. But even if they _did_ want to… to exact some kind of corporal punishment, I don't need to foresee it. Agnes has already done that for us, you understand? I just need to trust that she's given good advice."

And Crowley did understand. Aziraphale had spent his entire existence full of fear and doubt, just like he himself had. _Unlike_ him, however, Aziraphale had coped with that by closing his eyes and just trusting in God's ineffability as hard as he could, even far past the point of rationality. But now his confidence in— well, not God, perhaps, but certainly in Heaven— was rattled, so he was turning that capacity for blind faith on Agnes instead.

Crowley, however, had always been a bit of a skeptic.

"You're sure we can trust the old witch?” he asked.

"She hasn't been wrong yet."

Crowley couldn't really argue with the certainty in Aziraphale's voice. He sighed, dropping his head back against the back of the sofa.

"All right," he conceded. "So we're… commingling, then. How exactly do we…?”

“I must assume that it operates on basically the same principle as possession, just… a bit more _involved_.”

He grimaced. “I’ve never liked possession. Always feels a bit sticky.”

“I have to assume it’s a bit different when it’s a mutual experience.”

Aziraphale held out a hand expectantly, and after a moment, Crowley took it. “I’ve never done this before,” he admitted.

“Nor I, my dear. But I’m sure we can figure it out. After all, this sort of thing is supposed to be quite, er, natural for our kind.”

The phrasing struck Crowley as odd. “Our—?”

Before he could continue, however, he felt the brush of Aziraphale’s ethereal form against his own and promptly forgot everything he had ever known about the use of spoken language. His awareness of the material plane faded sharply, every ounce of mental focus dedicated to what was happening Elsewhere.

The sensation of Aziraphale’s true essence bleeding into his own was warm in the same way that the surface of the sun is warm. The experience was not one that could be adequately described in terms of human senses, but one thing became deeply apparent almost immediately: it was unequivocally the most intimate thing Crowley had ever experienced. Even without fully merging their essences, the sensation of blurring at the edges, starting to lose the line between himself and Aziraphale, was a blistering, penetrating sense of being _known_. It was terrifying, and Crowley wanted to cower away from it, except…

... _e x c e p t_ …

...it wasn’t just being known, it was _knowing_ . Because there, _there_ was Aziraphale, star-bright and clever and just the right amount of pugnacious and so full of love Crowley couldn’t resist. 

It wasn’t precisely love-making, but it wasn’t _not_ that either. It was a sensory delight using senses that human bodies simply weren’t equipped to process. It was knowing each other on a level they’d never experienced before, becoming a _them_ instead of an Aziraphale-and-Crowley-as-separate-entities, and it was knowing that there was a deeper intimacy still to be found, if only they reached a little further. He could feel the love Aziraphale had for him, and knew Aziraphale could feel his own love in return, and the sensation was instantly addicting. Crowley pressed forward eagerly, aware of how needy he must come across and yet aware, intimately aware, that Aziraphale would not judge him for it, that Aziraphale would welcome it, even, that—

—but before he could disperse his essence entirely and be subsumed into their collective whole, Aziraphale pushed back. Their higher forms clung together, stretching and reluctant to release like toffee being slowly pulled apart, but Aziraphale, stubborn bastard that he was, kept pressing onward until—

Crowley rocketed back to material awareness. He took stock of the body he was inhabiting, aware of the new cuddly plumpness around his midsection and the soft hands at the end of his much shorter arms. He noted that Aziraphale had apparently forgone his usual manicure recently; his nail beds were neat as usual, but there was no hint of even the clear lacquer the angel wore when he wasn’t feeling particularly self-expressive. Mercifully, he noted that the tingle of arousal he felt in the aftermath of their exchange had not decided to express itself physically— though the body he was wearing was most decidedly properly equipped for the task. _Interesting_. He himself hadn’t bothered making any sort of effort in that direction since the mid-19th century,[20] but the fact that Aziraphale had was… well, something he really shouldn’t think about in too much detail right now.

Finally, he stopped inspecting his own(?) body and looked up, only to find himself staring at… himself. Or at least, the body he usually inhabited anyway. There was one key difference, though.

For all that their experiment had been successful in getting their corporations basically swapped, it was Aziraphale’s eyes looking back at him. And not in a ‘ _the eyes are the windows to the soul_ ’ way, either. The eyes gleaming in the dim ambient lighting of the flat were wide and a very charming shade of blue-green, definitely not the eyes Crowley had gotten used to seeing in the mirror for the past six thousand years.

“ _Fuck!_ Forgot about that ‘personally cursed by God to be a serpent’ bit. No matter how many times I’ve been issued a new corporation over the years, the eyes are always the same.” He didn’t think it was worth mentioning the inevitable scaliness or ectothermic tendencies he could never seem to rid himself of either. With a groan, he flopped back against the back of the sofa and continued, “I don’t think this is going to fool anyone, Aziraphale.”

“Nonsense!” Aziraphale replied with a frankly insufferable amount of cheer. “This was only the first attempt! We managed to get the corporations swapped well enough, we just… underestimated how much we would have to enfold in order to mask certain angelic and demonic traits.”

Crowley gaped at him for a minute before venturing, “So basically you’re saying we’re going to have to try again.”

“Yes, basically that.”

“ _Fuck_.”

* * *

It took them three more tries to finally find the right ratio of _self_ to leave with each other in order to fully hide their true natures behind a smokescreen of the other’s essence. The effort left them both[21] prickling with spiritual and physical arousal that had no effective way of expressing itself, but by the time dawn broke they had figured out a workable solution.

Crowley still wasn’t entirely convinced that this would actually be an effective tactic to evade whatever punishment Hell (and Heaven?) had in store for them, but he trusted Aziraphale and Aziraphale trusted Agnes, and it wasn’t like they had any better ideas so this was what they were going to have to do, he supposed.

The very last thing Crowley wanted, in the aftermath of all this unexpected intimacy, was to leave Aziraphale and return to the bookshop. But if they were operating under the assumption that they were being watched— or would be very soon— then he had to behave just the way Aziraphale would. And so as the sun rose over London, he found himself leaving his flat to meander through the streets from Mayfair to Soho.

Before he set out, Aziraphale had surprised him by drawing him into a tight hug, and he found himself dwelling on it as he navigated the familiar route to the bookshop. 

It was a bit odd, to have Aziraphale hug him when the bodies they were inhabiting for the moment were so much different from what they were used to. Aziraphale just didn’t feel quite _right_ against him, wearing Crowley’s body that was all elbows and stringy limbs and joints that never seemed entirely sure of which direction they were meant to flex in. Aziraphale was meant to be soft and comfortable, but with Crowley wearing that body for the time being, it was a bit like hugging a lamp post, and only slightly warmer. 

He didn’t like it. He couldn’t wait until he could get Aziraphale back into his proper body. He would wrap him up in his arms and hold him for hours if Aziraphale was amenable, and maybe even finish what the angel had tried to start the night before...

Stepping out of the building in the early morning, he had immediately noticed a different taste in the air that completely shocked him out of thinking about everything he wanted to share with his angel once they were in the clear.

The air in London was cleaner than it had been forty years earlier— and certainly cleaner than it had been during the Industrial Revolution, when coal smog hung thick over the city almost every day— but it was still, ultimately, the air in one of the most populated cities in Europe. ‘ _Fresh_ ’ was not the word that came to mind.

And yet, there was something almost bucolic in the air that morning. It tasted like dawn and dew and new beginnings.

“A world made new,” he whispered, a grin creeping across his face.

Humans really were amazing. Offer a preadolescent boy ultimate power and what did he do with it? Build a brand new world in the shell of the old one. _Amazing_.

So distracted was he with the sensation of stepping out into a world just the same and yet somehow reborn, that in almost no time at all, Crowley found himself turning onto a familiar street without having realized how far he’d walked, and as he approached the corner where the bookshop used to stand, he—

_Wait._

Where the bookshop _stood_. 

A world made new, indeed.

Crowley was frozen in his tracks, the crowd of morning commuters parting around him like water as he stared up at the bookshop. The building was back, as if it had never seen a lick of flame. A.Z. Fell & Co., the vintage sign gleaming in the morning sun, looking just the way it had twenty-four hours ago. Just the way it had last week, last month, last year, eleven years ago when he had begged for Aziraphale’s help raising the Antichrist in the cozy back room. Just the way it had— save for a coat or three of fresh paint— when Aziraphale had first opened it two hundred years before.

Crowley felt transfixed by sight of it, his plump hands trembling at his sides. 

Yesterday he hadn’t… well, the loss of Aziraphale had been so comprehensive that it had completely overwhelmed any feelings of grief he might have had related to the bookshop itself. He hadn’t even thought about that until he was standing right in front of the building. 

And it was silly, wasn’t it? What was two centuries in the grand scheme of things? A couple human lifetimes? Not much more. He had walked this Earth— he and Aziraphale together— for thousands of years before the invention of books, let alone the invention of bookshops. The amount of time Aziraphale had owned this place was— _should_ have been— a blink of an eye to beings like them and yet…

Wasn’t this something like home? Wasn’t this their safe harbour? Wasn’t this the place he had always come to seek safety and comfort, even if he’d never been able to say out loud that that was what he needed? This bookshop was his and Aziraphale’s sanctuary and it had _burned_ —!

Crowley took a deep, shivering breath and let himself be comforted by the physicality of it. The cozy weight of Aziraphale’s soft body grounded him and let him step out of the cycle of confusion and questions and fear.

He wasn’t alone.

Buoyed up by a sense of propinquity, he stalked over to the door and let himself in.

The interior of the bookshop was just as he remembered. The same comfortable, musty peace, the smell of dust and chalk and old cocoa settling in his nose just the way it had always done. The room was maybe a touch brighter, as if the rain yesterday had had the opportunity to rinse a layer or two of grime from the skylight, but other than that it felt much the same as it ever had.

The bookshop felt the same… but Crowley didn’t. The sense of peace and comfort he had always felt whenever he came here was absent, leaving a gnawing sense of being somehow out of place. Like the bookshop, despite being fundamentally the same as it had before the fire, no longer felt quite like home. 

It wasn’t a feeling of renewal, like a snake shedding its skin or a hermit crab outgrowing its shell. It was too hollow for that, too much like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. It was a bit like he was looking at a photo of the bookshop from behind glass rather than standing in it himself. 

Was it simply because he was here without Aziraphale? Or was it something wrong with him personally?

As he took a few steps further inside, he caught a glance at the small collection of Tolkien first editions Aziraphale had acquired sometime in the late nineteen fifties.

“I think I get it now,” he muttered dourly in their direction, wishing he could direct the sour look he knew was on his face at the author himself.

A shelf of new books— or rather, a shelf of _recent additions_ , considering the visible age of the bindings— caught Crowley’s eye. He sidled over, eager for a distraction from the skin-prickling sense of unbelonging.

“Those are new,” he remarked aloud, doing his best to emulate Aziraphale’s little habit of muttering to himself when he thought he was alone, aware that there was a possibility he was being watched.

He gave the books a quick once over, and found himself smiling despite his discomposure. A complete collection of the Crompton _Just William_ stories. L. Frank Baum’s _Oz_ novels. Even a few A.A. Milne first editions, which he knew Aziraphale would adore.

 _Children’s books_. And lots of them. 

It seemed that the Antichrist had a bit of a sense of humor.

Crowley knew that if it were really Aziraphale here, he would probably sit down and start cataloguing the new arrivals according to whatever abstract and inscrutable filing system he was using this decade[22] but Crowley, whose book and music collections were strictly alphabetized, didn’t think he had it in him to try and uphold the angel’s obscure bullshit today.

Honestly he didn’t think he had it in him to even stand in this building right now. Turning on his heel, he marched right back out of the bookshop, a casual wave of his hand securely locking the door behind him. It was too early for his scheduled meetup with Aziraphale, but even lounging around the park was preferable to sitting around the shop. 

Aziraphale’s body wasn’t as keenly-attuned to the physical symptoms of panic as Crowley’s, but just because he was wearing a body that tended towards sweating and a racing pulse as a way of expressing an impending panic attack instead of his usual dizziness and nausea didn’t mean that he wasn’t aware of what anxiety felt like. The physical symptoms were just one half of a very familiar feedback loop, and he didn’t think he’d be much use to Aziraphale when Hell came for them if he fell apart. Better to be outside, where the preternatural freshness of the morning air would be a reminder that his worst fears _hadn’t_ come true.

It took three blocks for Crowley to force his heartbeat back down to a more manageable pace.

It took five blocks for him to realize he was being followed.

A man— or someone who looked quite a bit like a man, anyway— was keeping a careful ten yards behind him. He wasn’t sure if his tail was a representative of Heaven or Hell. It was almost impossible to tell the difference without a much closer examination than Crowley could get from a distance. 

Whoever they were, they were clearly used to being on Earth more frequently than the likes of Hastur or Gabriel, because if he didn’t have an empathic sense to fall back on, he’d never have recognized them as anything other than another nameless morning commuter. _Fuck_. If it were some higher-up who had no idea how to blend in or navitage human society, they’d have been easy to shake.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye as he took a sudden sharp turn down a crowded avenue, wishing desperately that he could conceal his gaze behind dark glass and get a better look. But with Aziraphale’s borrowed baby blues, all he could do was catch a quick glimpse unless he wanted to give away that he knew he’d been spotted.

It worried him that he was the one being followed. Aziraphale had been so sure that Hell would act first, that whatever consequences were coming from Heaven would take time. _Proper channels_. So if he was being followed, either their superiors had somehow sussed out their switch already, or Heaven was already moving to deliver Aziraphale’s punishment, and the only way to know which it was would be to confront his stalker.

But doing that would give the game away if they _hadn’t_ been found out, and this whole body-swap was the only card they had to play, so he didn’t dare.

His only choice, then, was to lose them.

All right then. He squared his shoulders in that way he’d seen Aziraphale do a thousand times, straightened his bow tie, and strode forward hoping that he looked like an angel without a care in the world.

David Niven had prepared him for this. 

* * *

Aziraphale had been half-tempted to drive the Bentley to St. James’ for his appointed meeting with Crowley, and indeed taking the car would have been wiser for the purposes of selling their ruse to anyone who might be covertly observing them. But truth be told, the last time he’d tried to get behind the wheel of Crowley’s infernal machine, sometime in the late seventies, it had been a rather abysmal misadventure[23] so it was perhaps for the best that he hailed a taxi.

They met in the usual park bench, just in sight of the Blue Bridge, but didn’t sit down as they might ordinarily have done. Instead, they just found themselves standing there in the midst of the usual collection of humans going about their usual business on a usual late-summer Sunday morning.

And it felt absolutely alien.

He simply didn’t know what to say, so he blurted out, “You’re here early.”

Crowley shrugged. “Picked up a tail near the bookshop, ended up having to crisscross half of Soho to ditch them. By that point it seemed like there was no point going back to the shop so I just came straight here.”

Well _that_ was disconcerting! “One of my people, or yours?”

“I’m not entirely sure.”

Aziraphale frowned. The fact that _Crowley_ had been followed and not himself was not a good sign. It raised worrying questions about the success of their little hat trick. But he couldn’t say any of it out loud in case they were being watched.

Which, of course, left him with nothing at all to say. He was confident that he would be able to pull off an impeccable performance as Crowley once Hell came for him, but it felt awkward and disingenuous to try to play Crowley to his very face. After six thousand years by each other’s side, they had rather worn grooves in each other, and trying to play opposing roles like this felt like a cog had slipped loose in the well-oiled machine of their usual repartee. 

Clearly he wasn’t the only one feeling out of sorts, as Crowley gave him a helpless sort of look. 

It was a strange expression to see, both because Crowley was wearing a face Aziraphale was much more used to seeing in the mirror, and because he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. It had been thousands of years since Aziraphale had seen Crowley’s eyes bare in public like this, and they weren’t even really _his_ eyes. If he looked very, _very_ closely, with eyes of his own that existed on a nonphysical plane of reality, he could _almost_ see the reality of Crowley’s self peeking through. He had to admit, though— they’d done very well. Unless one knew exactly what to look for, the deception was nearly perfect on virtually every plane. It would, he thought smugly, take an extremely clever Archangel to see through _that!_ [24]

But all considerations about the effectiveness of their ruse aside, it was somewhat gratifying to know that he wasn’t the only one who was struggling.

“Should we— er—” Crowley was floundering in the awkwardness of it all, and Aziraphale could see him physically resisting the urge to stuff his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. Rallying, he managed, with a tilt of his head in the direction of a nearby vendor, “Do you fancy an ice cream?”

Aziraphale nodded. “On me, angel,” he said in his best imitation of Crowley’s casual air. 

Crowley flushed absolutely scarlet, and Aziraphale gave him his cheekiest possible grin. If they were going to put on a performance, he didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t have a bit of fun with it all.[25]

They approached the ice cream vendor, and Aziraphale stepped forward to place their usual order. “A strawberry lolly and a vanilla with a flake, please.” He handed over a few quid to the man, aware of Crowley pacing around like a pensive tiger as was his usual habit. 

As he handed the vanilla over to the demon, he resisted the urge to tell him to stop acting so much like himself, lest their double act be discovered.

“How’s the car?” Crowley asked, quite abruptly. Aziraphale did some very quick mental math and realized what must have prompted such a question. Hope for the restoration of his collection sparked to life in his gut.

“Not a scratch on it,” he reassured him. “How’s the bookshop?”

“Not a smudge. Not a book burned. Everything back just the way it was. Or… well, almost. There are a few new additions.”

“Oh?”

“It seems our little Antichrist has a bit of a sense of humor.”

Well _that_ was cryptic. Aziraphale wanted badly to ask precisely what Crowley meant, but he supposed he would find out sooner or later… assuming their current efforts paid off.

“Have your people been in touch yet?” he asked instead, reverting to their agreement to stick to the subject of Armageddon while they were in public. Anything else was too risky until they’d switched back. Too much potential to give something away.

Crowley shook his head. “Yours?”

“Nothing.”

Aziraphale hesitated, giving an idle lick to the strawberry lolly before venturing a question slightly more personal. “Do you understand what happened yesterday?”

“Well, I understand some of it,” Crowley said with a shrug, “But some of it, well… it’s just a bit too…”

 _INEFFABLE_ , a dark voice interrupted.

He whipped around to see Azrael himself standing on the green. The Angel of Death seemed to be staring them down. A flock of pigeons took flight around him, a burst of feathers and noise, and then the vision of Death faded.

“Funny seeing him here,” Aziraphale said distractedly. “It’s meant to be bad luck.”

Crowley didn’t respond. 

“Angel?” Aziraphale prompted idly, still staring at the spot where Azrael had disappeared.

A strangled squeak from behind him was the only response he got and he turned around, expecting to see Crowley distressed by the presence of Death in the park…

...but when he spotted Crowley, his chest clenched in a sudden, intense spike of panic. His hands were bound, his mouth taped up to silence him, and a pair of choir angels were dragging him backwards by the elbow. Aziraphale met his eyes, and could see the abject horror he was feeling reflected in Crowley’s gaze. The demon struggled against the hands holding him, but the angels were much too strong for that to do any good, and before Aziraphale could act, Uriel and Sandalphon stepped between them, obscuring Crowley from sight just before he was tossed into the back of a maintenance van.

This wasn’t right! This wasn’t what was supposed to happen, wasn’t what Aziraphale had planned for! He had expected that Hell would be coming for Crowley, given what Agnes’ prophecy had said, but Heaven stepping in? He hadn’t seen this coming at all! 

Or, rather, he’d expected a formal summons to answer for his treason sometime in the next three to five business weeks, not a kidnapping in broad daylight! He’d expected to have some time to plan a formal rebuttal, a more considered version of what he’d said to Gabriel on the air strip. This whole body-swap business was supposed to be for Crowley’s sake, but instead Crowley was being hauled away by a cadre of divine bully-boys.

_Oh Lord, they were going to drag Crowley up to Heaven—!_

White-hot fear seared through every inch of Aziraphale’s body, and he could barely hear Uriel and Sandalphon smugly paraphrasing The Sound of Music at him through the ringing in his ears. By the time he collected his senses, the Archangel and her enforcer were already retreating into the van Crowley had been shoved into.

“Hey! Stop! Stop them!” Aziraphale shouted, flinging himself after them several seconds too late.

“What’s wrong, love?” a voice crowed from his right.

“My friend! They’re kidnapping my friend!” he yelled, flinging away his ice lolly as he dashed forward.

But before he’d taken more than a few steps, something heavy impacted the back of his knees, sending him tumbling to the ground, with a second blow connecting with the back of his shoulders before he hit the asphalt.

Internally cursing Crowley’s lanky— and distinctly un-padded— body, Aziraphale gave a dizzy glance over his shoulder to see the person he’d taken for a tourist had shifted somehow, and a demon’s eyes peered down at him.

“Bad luck, dear,” the demon cooed in a sickly falsetto, raising the crowbar they were carrying above their head.

“Not a problem,” Aziraphale mumbled. “Everything’s tickety-boo…”

The crowbar came down, and blackness took him.

* * *

The first thing Aziraphale became aware of was the heat. It was a far cry from the comfortable desert heat he had been accustomed to during the several millennia he was stationed in the dryer regions of central Asia. Nor was it anything like the heat he had experienced when traveling in tropical climes over the centuries. 

This was a sullen, oppressive, sweltering heat which somehow managed to simultaneously be too humid to breathe comfortably and make his skin feel dry and stretched too tightly over his body. 

That alone was enough to tell Aziraphale exactly where he must be.

The second thing he became aware of, upon taking a startled breath in, was the stench.

Whenever Crowley had to visit Hell to report in, he had always come back reeking of sulfur, and had complained that it took weeks for him to wash the smell out no matter how many hot showers he took. The smell that invaded Aziraphale’s nose as he swam gradually back to full consciousness was heavy on the sulfur, certainly, but underneath that the smells of mold, dry rot, and a distinct sour note of body odor mingled unpleasantly.

The third thing Aziraphale became aware of was a throbbing pain in his legs and head.

Ah. Right. He’d been ambushed by demons. Lovely.

Cautiously, he opened his eyes just a crack. 

He lay on the floor of a small, barren antechamber. His hands were bound in front of him, but he was otherwise unrestrained. Even such light bindings, however, felt quite uncomfortable against his skinny little wrists, and the hard surface he was laying on was making his hipbones ache something fierce where bone hit floor with only the barest layer of flesh between. How on God’s green earth did Crowley manage this body? All skin and bones, absolutely no padding whatsoever, it was just dreadfully uncomfortable!

In an effort to distract himself from the physical discomfort, Aziraphale gave a cursory look around him. Every surface he could see was made of dark concrete— or at least some asomatous equivalent thereof, seeing as they had technically left the material plane— with uncomfortably narrow walls and an uncomfortably high ceiling. 

So this was Hell. Rank, confined, and dimly-lit only by some celestial equivalent to a buzzing fluorescent tube that flickered nauseatingly at random intervals.

 _Lovely_.

He was reminded again, in a perverse way, of Crowley’s flat. Just like this room, it was all concrete and narrow, claustrophobic spaces. And yet, unlike this dingy room in Hell, it was whitewashed and well-lit and filled with green and growing things. Somehow simultaneously a reflection of Heaven and Hell and Earth itself all in one.

Good gracious, he was beginning to realize that for all Crowley’s protestations of indifference, for all that he put on a wonderful act of nonchalance, there was perhaps a great deal more going on psychologically than met the eye. When he got out of here, he was really going to have to sit the dear thing down for a chat about his mental health.[26]

But for now, Crowley was up in Heaven. Oh Lord, what would they do to him? Aziraphale didn’t fear Falling, he never had, and he had never expected that as a punishment even for his desertion the day before… but what if all bets were off? What if Gabriel tried to cast him down? Crowley was already Fallen, so it wasn’t as if he could Fall _again_ , but would that reveal their trick? They wouldn’t think to try holy water to extinguish him as long as they thought he was Aziraphale, but if their trick was revealed…

Of course, there was a chance they would get terribly lucky, and Heaven would have some other punishment in mind for Aziraphale. Demotion, reassignment, exile, there were all sorts of things that could befall an angel who stepped out of line. Not that it had ever happened, of course[27], because no angel besides himself was foolish enough to disobey orders[28].

And even leaving aside the safety risks involved, he couldn’tforget the fact that Crowley was the first demon to enter Heaven since the Fall.[29] Bad enough that he was already the first and only demon to encounter God face to face after the Fall— and be personally cursed by Her, no less!— but Aziraphale had to assume that returning to Heaven, especially under such circumstances, could not be pleasant for him.

But if he started letting himself get bogged down in all the thousands of things that could go wrong, he would never be able to project the cool insouciance that Crowley worked so hard to pull off. He needed to collect himself. Aziraphale took a calming breath, and despite immediately regretting it due to the foul taste of the air, he forced himself into some semblance of confidence. 

This would work. He would defy Hell. Crowley would survive Heaven. They would be reunited and everything would be fine.

It had to.

“He’s awake!” a harsh voice cried.

Aziraphale startled, not having realized there was anyone else in the room. A quick glance around brought his attention to a squat little imp crouched by the door. Barely a foot high, rotund and distinctly reptilian, Aziraphale suspected they must be some ill-fated former human who’d managed a promotion off the rack. 

_Poor creature_ , he reflected sadly. He hoped this wasn’t someone he’d known in life.[30]

The imp gave him a baleful glare and banged the short staff they carried on the ground, and this appeared to be an awaited signal. A pair of burly demons entered the antechamber, flanking the doorway. 

“The prisoner will now rise to be escorted to his place of trial,” the imp announced superciliously.

Aziraphale got to his feet, hiding a wince as the bindings on his wrists scraped against his skin. Once he’d found his footing, he surveyed his captors, analyzing the situation. Two guards. One imp. No one of importance. He was a Principality with God’s Grace at his command. He’d never really been the smiting type, but if he were to decide to turn these poor sods to ash and stroll out of Hell whistling, they certainly wouldn’t be able to stop him.

But that, of course, was not a viable option. Despite every instinct he’d never actually been aware he had screaming out to him to flee this pitiable place, Hell was exactly where Aziraphale wanted to be.

He was here for Crowley’s sake. He was here to protect him, to face Hell in his place, and to make sure that not even the Princes of Hell who answered only to Lucifer himself would ever dare to raise a hand against him. Crowley deserved better than what Hell had given him, and Aziraphale was here to make sure he would never be their pawn again. To make him _safe_. And while he was inhabiting this body, he had tools available to him that would not have been at his disposal in his own form. The little pieces of himself that Crowley had left behind, that ability to sell confidence even when he wasn’t feeling it at all… Aziraphale could draw on that. And he would.

Aziraphale was made to be a guardian. Now was the time to fulfill that role. 

He took a deep breath, allowed his body to relax into the sort of louche elegance that Crowley always managed to project, and said, “All right then, let’s get it over with, shall we?”

* * *

All Crowley could think, as he was carried away from Aziraphale, was that _this wasn’t part of the plan_.

He had just about reconciled himself to the idea of Aziraphale being taken to Hell to face punishment in his place. It wasn’t exactly ideal, but it was better than letting himself get executed, or just bailing on Earth to spend the rest of his life on the run in space. But getting dragged up to Heaven himself, on the other hand…

He shivered, and hoped that the angels guarding him didn’t notice.

Some serpentine instinct reared its head and Crowley went still as he was transported away from London, gagged and immobilized. He could feel it the instant that they arrived in Heaven, the very atmosphere gone brittle and blazing with the same holy Grace that he’d felt when he and Aziraphale shared their essence. But unlike what he’d experienced with Aziraphale, this sensation did not feel in any way loving.

It felt ancient and familiar and very, very _wrong_ in a fundamental way. Antithetical to what he’d become, and yet also part of a home he had both feared and longed for since before Time began.

The very sensation of Heaven surrounding him, welcoming him back in under false pretenses, made his skin crawl and made something very visceral in him want to bolt for the shadows. This place wasn’t _for him_ anymore. If he could just wait for an opening— but no, he was supposed to be Aziraphale right now. Aziraphale wouldn’t run. That wasn’t who he was, not that Heaven knew a damn thing about what Aziraphale was really like.

So instead he forced himself to listen to the whispering going on between Uriel and Sandalphon, who were somewhere outside of his range of vision as he was marched Upstairs.

“I don’t like this,” Uriel muttered.

“Aziraphale’s guilty of treason,” Sandalphon responded, in a voice that somehow captured the exact tone of a workplace harassment memo waiting to happen.[31] “Gabriel wants him dealt with.”

Uriel’s voice was sharp when she replied. “And I agree with him, but _dealt with_ doesn’t mean unilateral action like this.”

Crowley didn’t dare look around to check, but he was absolutely certain that a shrug preceded Sandalphon’s next statement. “What’s it matter? You’re in favor, Gabriel’s in favor, clearly Michael’s on board since they coordinated with Duke Hastur to get the holy water Downstairs, it’s still a three-quarters majority, isn’t it?”

Holy water? Downstairs? _Coordinated?_ Suddenly the pieces fell into place and Crowley felt a soul-deep sense of relief as he realized what Agnes must have forseen. If holy water was the punishment, Aziraphale would survive it. And he… he would…

“I don’t like it,” Uriel repeated. “We should be waiting on Raphael. A decision like this should be presented as a united front.”

“Maybe Gabriel is concerned that Raphael can’t be unbiased in a matter like this,” came the response from Sandalphon. “Wasn’t Aziraphale under their command first?”

“Yes, before we reorganized after the Rebellion. But he’s been working under Gabriel ever since.”

“Hm. Don’t see as it matters,” they said. “Either way, you’ve got a principality colluding with the Serpent, abandoning his post, and committing treason to postpone Armageddon. Seems pretty clear-cut no matter what Raphael might have to say.”

Uriel sighed. “Perhaps you’ve a point there.”

Crowley frowned. Aziraphale had always been tight-lipped about Heavenly politics. It was one thing to collaborate with Crowley to make their jobs easier, but spilling state secrets— to borrow the human parlance— had been an entirely different matter to the angel. But from the sounds of things, something was rotten in Heaven. There was, at least, not nearly as much uniformity of opinion among the higher-ups as Aziraphale liked to pretend there was when arguing politics.

 _Interesting_.

Before he could reflect too much further on the implications, however, the guardians who were flanking him forced him into a chair and Uriel stepped around to face him. With a snap of her fingers, the bindings that had been keeping his wrists together separated and bound him instead to the chair. 

It wasn’t even a _comfortable_ chair, for Satan’s sake! Crowley squirmed, grateful for the extra padding that Aziraphale’s corporation afforded him.

“You will stay here until Gabriel returns from his consultation with the Metatron,” she informed him. “You will not speak, you will not break your bindings, and you will not leave this room. Sandalphon will be watching the door until we return.”

So saying, she strode regally away, with Sandalphon and the guards trailing in her wake.

Crowley wondered how she expected him to be able to achieve any of those things before it occurred to him that, of course, she thought she was talking to Aziraphale. It wouldn’t be unexpected for a Principality to be strong enough, even while inhabiting a physical body, to simply rip through any chain that bound them. 

In other words, as far as Heaven was concerned, the bindings that held him were merely symbolic. They were counting on obedience to keep “Aziraphale” docile until they disposed of him as they saw fit.

Crowley was suddenly, _blindingly_ angry on Aziraphale’s behalf. He resolved that, if he got the opportunity, he was definitely going to wreak a little havoc in his angel’s name.

* * *

There is, of course, no _literal_ building in central London that houses gateways to Heaven and Hell. That would, of course, be ridiculous.[32] There is, however, a _metaphorical_ building, and for anyone with the necessary extraplanar senses to perceive it, it is located approximately three quarters of a mile southeast of Waterloo Bridge. To any normal observer, any being who enters or exits this pathway to a higher plane would simply appear to be ducking into or out of a narrow alley between an office building and a coffee chain.

Only two such supernatural beings made frequent use of this particular gateway, but realistically it did not particularly matter whether it was in use three times a year or three hundred times. As is the case in most major metropolitan areas around the globe, casual passers-by are not particularly concerned with the commute of those around them, and thus are disinclined to be worried about complete strangers who step into alleyways only to vanish from sight almost instantaneously. 

Aziraphale had come and gone through this theoretical building countless times since his semi-permanent assignment to the oversight of western Europe. This was, however, his first trip up from the theoretical basement. He found he didn’t like it all that much. Not, of course, that he was much fonder of trips to and from the other direction, either. Still, at least coming down from Upstairs, you had the benefit of a glass-front elevator that let you look out at the city. Theoretically speaking, anyway.

When the hypothetical elevator dinged and spat him out into the lobby in a cloud of air humid enough he was genuinely concerned he might have to look himself over for mildew later, he took a few steps and paused. It was tempting to simply run out into the street and put all this behind him, but he didn’t want to leave without Crowley. Should he… should he try to enter Heaven and rescue him? It seemed like the sort of audacious thing that would be expected of Crowley, whose face he was currently wearing. But a demon— or at least someone who looked like one— trespassing on Heaven like that could have political ramifications, even if it was a demon who had been renounced by Hell that very day. Should he risk it?

Before he could settle on the wisest course of action, however, the elevator door slid open again, and Crowley himself stepped out.

He didn’t dare let himself react too visibly, because there was no doubt they were still being observed, but he could see the same relief in Crowley’s eyes that he felt. They stood there for a moment, simply gazing at each other.

Then Crowley adjusted his bow tie and, with a devilish little twinkle in his eye, said, “Now _that_ was playing with fire.”

Aziraphale was unsure what he meant, and unsure he wanted to know, but there would be time for all that later, once they were out of this wretched building. “After you, angel,” he said, gesturing a touch mockingly to the revolving doors that would send them out into the world.

Once safely back in the physical realm, Aziraphale realized it could only have been a few hours at most since their abduction in the park. The early afternoon sunlight beat down on the pavement in that very distinctive late-August way, and the sounds of traffic and people and the sound of some distant busker playing a discordant melody on a saxophone filled the air.

“Should we hail a taxi?” he ventured. That was his usual approach when he had to report to Head Office in the past.

Crowley shook his head, pale blond curls catching the sunlight. “Better take the tube,” he replied tersely, tilting his head in a distinctive, jerky motion that didn’t match at all with the body he was currently wearing. “More discreet.”

Aziraphale didn’t much fancy descending into the noisy confinement of the London underground so soon after walking out of Hell, but Crowley had a point. There was a decent chance someone would be tailing them, and their odds of shaking off any surveillance so they could switch back in peace were higher in a busy train station.

It wasn’t much of a walk to the Southwark station, and once they were seated on the train Aziraphale gave a hushed[33] summary of the events that had taken place during his time in Hell.

Crowley gave a low whistle once he had finished. “Execution by holy water, huh? That’s harsh.”

“I believe Duke Hastur described it as ‘the punishment fitting the crime.’”

Crowley shrugged. “Fair. You know, before everything that’s happened this last day, I might have been surprised, but after seeing what Heaven had planned for you I can’t say I’m shocked.”

Aziraphale thought back to Dagon’s sneering comment about _cooperation with our old enemies_ and frowned. “I suppose if it was holy water for me, it must have been hellfire for you, then?”

“Yep.” His expression was grim, and he avoided making eye contact.

 _Thank goodness for Agnes’s warning_ , Aziraphale thought, a bit dizzily. Somehow, even after everything he’d seen and done this week, he still hadn’t anticipated how swift and brutal Heaven’s retribution would be. He should have, he realized. He _really_ should have. But he hadn’t wanted to see it, had he? Without Agnes foreseeing what would come and writing down her advice, he would have been so focused on guarding Crowley that the possibility of harm coming to him would have escaped him.

Gratitude filled him and left him overwhelmed and speechless. He had to restrain himself from reaching out to take Crowley’s hand to steady himself, unsure if it would be welcomed after Crowley had rebuffed his advances the night before.

But he wasn’t going to think about that. Crowley had said “not now,” and Aziraphale was resolved to _not think about that_ until Crowley gave him an indication of his feelings on the matter. 

After all, what was the use of tormenting himself with ‘what ifs’ when everything had worked out so well? He had no room to be put out when things were shaping up to be better than they’d ever been. Crowley was safe from Hell, he was apparently a free agent, they were both alive and well and the world kept on spinning. What right did he have to regrets?

* * *

The underground spat them back out at the Green Park Station, and Aziraphale ascended back into the sunlight with almost the same amount of relief he’d felt riding the elevator back out of Hell. He doubted he would have much inclination towards dark, enclosed spaces anytime soon.

By silent agreement they made their way to Berkeley Square and found themselves a park bench. Quiet settled over them for some time, both of them needing a few moments to process everything that had happened.

Eventually, Aziraphale spoke up. “You didn’t mention what happened with my trial,” he said, aiming for jovial and probably significantly missing the mark.

Crowley’s expression was strained. “Not much to say really. Just, y’know, ‘you’re a traitor,’ ‘the greater good means defeating Hell’ and the like.”

“You talked to them about the greater good?” Aziraphale asked, feeling a sense of wonderment come over him at the very idea.

Crowley shrugged. “Figured it’s what you’d say. I needed to turn in a good performance.”

Aziraphale let him have the excuse, but smiled internally. Crowley could say what he liked, but he knew exactly where his dear friend stood on the subject of what actually constituted the greater good.

“Do you think they’ll leave us alone, now?”

“At a guess, they’ll pretend it never happened.” Aziraphale glanced around. To the best of his knowledge, no one had followed them out of the gateway, and he knew Crowley had been paying quite close attention on the tube. He didn’t spy anyone loitering in the park who shouldn’t be there. As far as he could tell, the only one who could conceivably be observing them was Herself. “Right. Is anyone looking?”

Crowley placed his fingers to his temples, concentrating hard. Aziraphale could feel time slow to a near-standstill around them.

“Nobody,” Crowley confirmed. “Right. Swap back, then?”

He held out his hand, and Aziraphale took it.

The experience of sharing in each other was just as intimate as it had been the night before, and the process of separating and picking apart which bits of themselves belonged to which was just as agonizing. If it weren’t absolutely imperative for their switch to go off undetected, Aziraphale was quite convinced that he would have been content to just sit there and languish in the experience of being so close to Crowley for the rest of time.

But alas.

Sorting themselves back out into fully separate entities didn’t take half so long as blending themselves together in the first place had. Aziraphale wasn’t certain whether it was due to the benefit of practice or whether it was simply easier the other way around, but either way it was the work of moments for them to sort themselves out. 

They settled back into their original bodies and with a gesture from Crowley, time settled back into its regular progression.

Aziraphale couldn’t quite repress the shiver that ran through him. A spark of physical arousal careened through his nervous system, the physical echo of the spiritual arousal commingling his essence with Crowley’s inevitably caused. And yet even that wasn’t entirely the same in reverse. Despite all his proverbial pieces— physical and metaphysical— being back in their rightful place, he couldn’t help but feel a bit bereft. The little bits of Crowley that he’d been carrying around with him since he’d swapped, the whisps of demonic essence that had disguised him in Hell, had been comforting in a way he didn’t know how to articulate.

It appeared that at the other end of the bench, Crowley was experiencing something similar, if the way he was flexing his hand and looking away with a distinct blush was anything to go by.

Somehow it helped to know that he wasn’t alone in being thrown by the strangeness of it all.

“A tartan collar? Really?” Crowley complained.

Relieved for the familiar banter to distract himself from the tension in the air between them, Aziraphale latched onto it. “Tartan is stylish!” he protested. The recalcitrant grimace this provoked was well worth it.

“So,” he continued, “Agnes Nutter’s last prophecy was on the money! I don’t know that I mentioned, but I asked them for a rubber duck! And I made the Archangel Michael miracle me a towel.”

He couldn’t even make it through the sentence without bursting into a fit of giggles, and was gratified when Crowley also threw back his head and laughed. It was good to see him like that, carefree and able to lay down all his concerns for awhile.

But all too soon, Crowley’s mirth faded from noonday joy into a contemplative sunset. “No, they’ll leave us alone… for a bit,” he mused. “You ask me, both sides are going to use this as breathing room before the big one.”

Aziraphale frowned. “I thought that was the big one!”

Crowley shook his head. “Nah. For my money, the really big one will be all of us against all of them.”

“What, you mean… Heaven and Hell against humanity?”

Silence fell as they both pondered that. As far as Aziraphale was concerned, there was no question which side they would be on if Crowley’s grim prediction came true. He knew, instinctively, in a soul-deep way he would never have allowed himself before, that Crowley’s answer would be just the same.

Crowley sighed, breaking the contemplative moment. “Well, time to leave the garden. Let me tempt you to a spot of lunch?”

Aziraphale grinned. “Temptation accomplished!”

As Crowley led him out of the little patch of green and out into the bustling city streets, he suggested, “What about the Ritz? I do believe a table for two has just miraculously come free.”

He didn’t even need to look at Crowley’s beaming expression to know that he agreed. But he looked anyway, just for the hell of it.

And as the afternoon mellowed, time ticking on towards evening, an angel and a demon settled into a late lunch together, very nearly as content as could be.

Elsewhere in the world, a medium and a witchfinder came to a domestic agreement.

A journalist glanced over at her coworker’s empty desk in confusion.

A witch burned an ancient book of prophecy.

A young lad chased his dog, laughing, through the fields around his home.

And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

* * *

[1]Metaphorical and literal. Adam had banished his infernal father in favor of his earthly father, but he had not seen fit to entirely clear away the sulfurous smog Satan had left in his wake. [back]

[2] Crowley had never claimed to be perfectly self-aware[back]

[3]In Arthur Young’s defense, his main frame of reference for the US military consisted of watching American movies, all of which seemed to place, in his opinion, an extremely heavy emphasis on firearms as the principle denotation of a soldier.[back]

[4] Anathema because she had deduced from context clues that the older man wielding what looked like a blunderbuss gone horribly wrong was another witchfinder and she was in no mood to find out if this one was as friendly as her current acquaintance, and Newton because he was vaguely aware of having committed some rather serious dereliction of duty over the last several hours.[back]

[5] Truth be told, the answer to Anathema’s question was a succinct “both,” but Crowley had not ever managed to work up the nerve to actually say as much to Aziraphale, let alone to two random humans he’d barely known an hour.[back]

[6] Crowley, as a general rule, preferred not to access his angelic senses while occupying a corporeal form. His body was confused enough as to whether it should behave like a serpent or a human without superimposing celestial faculties never intended for physical reality. Trying to access that kind of sensory input for very long usually gave him something unpleasantly akin to vertigo.[back]

[7] Crowley was of the opinion that, having had some sort of role in saving the world, the very least this bespectacled human could do with himself was pollute it less. The Wasabi would, among other things, be getting several hundred miles to the gallon henceforth.[back]

[8] Looked like, but were not, in much the same way that Aziraphale and Crowley themselves looked like, but were not, human men.[back]

[9] Aziraphale mostly attributed this to good luck. Crowley, who would deny his protective streak until his dying breath, knew better.[back]

[10] Strictly speaking, the corporations issued to angels and demons incarnate on Earth do not have a set appearance until they are inhabited, at which point they take on an appearance comfortable to the celestial being in question. An angel being re-incorporated after a previous earthly body was killed might not be physically identical to their previous form, but there tended to be a strong resemblance, depending on how comfortable the individual was with being human-shaped to begin with. It should therefore be assumed that Aziraphale, who had not been out of human form since almost the beginning of linear Time, would have bent any corporation, regardless of origin, into a form remarkably similar to the one he’d been inhabiting all along.[back]

[11] The bottle probably should have been empty by now, but it obliged them by staying comfortably half-full for as long as they needed it to.[back]

[12] Historically, whenever they had taken the bus together, they had made it a point to sit a row or two apart from each other for the sake of plausible deniability. Today, however, it didn’t even occur to Aziraphale to sit anywhere other than right by Crowley’s side.[back]

[13] His spine, which had never quite adapted to having a human shape, for once made no protest.[back]

[14] It seemed more worth his time to struggle against the sudden tightness in his throat instead.[back]

[15] To his credit, he did at least manage to start it. [back]

[16] He did know when. It was just embarrassing to admit it.[back]

[17] Not the smartest person he’d _ever_ known, not quite. That honor went to a young lady from the Punjab region Crowley had known sometime around 950 A.D. No one important, from a historical standpoint, for which he was quite grateful because it meant that job-wise he was permitted to leave her be and simply enjoy her conversation during the time that they knew each other.[back]

[18] The astute reader may have already recognized Crowley’s allusion to John Milton’s seminal work _Paradise Lost_ , particularly the passage in which the Archangel Raphael describes to Adam the method by which angels engage in their own analogue to human sexual intimacy. The circumstances under which Mr. Milton came by such knowledge was not a story Crowley was prepared to divulge without having consumed a great deal more alcohol that he had at present.[back]

[19] The intricacies of angelic entanglement do not progress as a one-to-one correlation with human sexual acts, but it would be fair to say that the sort of “comingling” Aziraphale had recommended as the best approach to disguising themselves was somewhere on the scale of intimacy between a handjob and fellatio.[back]

[20] This was in part because the late 1800s were the time that Hell de-prioritized Lust as a major sin for the first time in more than three centuries, meaning Crowley was assigned fewer jobs with a certain slant, but was in all honesty mostly because it made his trousers fit better. Or at least, Crowley. He was a bit reluctant to actually ask Aziraphale directly, because it would bring up all sorts of mortifying things he wasn’t even remotely prepared to discuss just yet. [back]

[21] Or at least, Crowley. He was a bit reluctant to actually ask Aziraphale directly, because it would bring up all sorts of mortifying things he wasn’t even remotely prepared to discuss just yet. [back]

[22] Aziraphale had a habit of changing his filing system on a rotating basis every ten to twenty years or so. He had claimed once that it was to “keep abreast of new ideas in human cataloguing science,” which Crowley knew was absolute bullshit, and that it was most likely an attempt to keep anyone from figuring out how he organized his collection.[back]

[23] It would be fair to say that Aziraphale’s faith in the reliability of human inventions was not as strong as Crowley’s. As such his disinclination to expect them to behave as they ought tended to have more of an impact on reality than he was always willing to admit. 

He was convinced that Crowley had never entirely forgiven him for what had happened to the poor tyres.[back]

[24] Aziraphale, it should be noted, was of the opinion that no such Archangel existed.[back]

[25] Taking the opportunity to needle Crowley, after the way Crowley had rejected his attempt at intimacy the night before, had absolutely _nothing_ to do with it, of course.[back]

[26] It did not occur to Aziraphale to wonder if perhaps he also needed to have a chat with Crowley about his own mental health, but it probably should have.[back]

[27] It had.[back]

[28] As far as Aziraphale knew. Which, as a field agent who rarely (if ever) bothered to put in an appearance Upstairs if he could help it, was not actually all that far.[back]

[29] Again, as far as Aziraphale knew. The reader may feel free to wonder whether certain Archangels’ covert meetings with their Downstairs contacts took place on Earth or Somewhere Else.[back]

[30] It was, and Aziraphale would have been devasted had he ever discovered who.[back]

[31] Crowley hadn’t exactly spent much time around angels lately, but he was genuinely curious as to how a slimeball like Sandalphon had worked their way up to middle management. The way he remembered things, lowercase-a archangels didn’t usually play bullyboy enforcer for capital-A Archangels. Clearly there had been a shakeup in Heaven’s power structure since the old days.[back]

[32] Not to mention a highly inefficient use of celestial resources. Not that Heaven and Hell are particularly known for their overall efficiency, of course.[back]

[33] He needn’t have bothered lowering his voice. Humans who are regular passengers on the London underground overhear things far more bizarre than a stranger describing a criminal trial in Hell on virtually a daily basis and, as a general rule, think nothing of it.[back]

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is intended to be the first installment of a TV 'verse post-canon series involving the full cast and a great deal of fun with Anathema and Madame Tracy, all of which I'm quite excited about. This is why I chose to leave the romantic tension remains unresolved for now. I'm not entirely certain when I'll get around to writing and uploading the next work in the series, but for now I'll just say... stay tuned.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I'd love to hear your feedback!


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